FoosTalk Live | Ep 306 | Don Wilson on Mississippi State Championships

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[00:01:49] Designed and handcrafted in Germany, order online and have it delivered to your door. Visit www.original-leonhardt-usa.com and use promo code FOOSTALK to save 10% off your purchase price. They did. And here we are, live on Foos Talk Live. Hello there. It's Tom Robinson. And I just want to say, hey, thanks for giving me the night off last Sunday.

[00:02:19] It was a nice change to be in the audience and let somebody else do the work for a change. I took a quick trip to New England and saw a great concert. And now I feel a whole lot better. And so we are back together again to talk about foosball. What do you say? And by the way, if you're going to talk about foosball, you better have somebody kicking around that loves to talk about foosball, which of course would be Chase Pennell. And I got your name right this time. I got your name. I finally got it down. You didn't mess it up this time. Chase Pennell.

[00:02:49] Chase is, of course, from the great state of Tennessee. And thanks for being on the air with me tonight. It's always a pleasure here. Always. I love it. Dude, you're now a top professional media guy anyway. So when it comes to doing play-by-play and the show, I mean, hey, you're the guy. You're the dude. I'm trying to be. I don't know that I'm the guy yet. I'm trying to be. There's a lot of big shoes to fill. There's a lot of shadows to get from behind. Yeah. But over time, that's the name of the game, right?

[00:03:19] Oh, yeah. We just want to do what's good for foosball. Yeah, absolutely. And we're all pulling on the same end of the rope here when it comes to the media. So that's the idea. Well, you know, foosball is never – it's a nonstop thing. And I have to say, there are a few personalities I've come across in this sport who seem to work a lot harder than everybody else. And one of those individuals happens to be with us tonight. Welcome back to the microphone of Foos Talk Live. Don Wilson is looking behind him.

[00:03:48] Who are we talking about here? Don Wilson, welcome once again from the great state of Mississippi. You're on the threshold of yet another tournament. That is correct. How are you feeling? I appreciate y'all having me on here. Sure. Feeling great. I'm kind of feeling anxious a little bit because, you know, when you're running tournaments, you're putting money on the line. And, you know, you never know what to expect. And you're always kind of on pins and needles.

[00:04:15] But for some reason, I feel pretty relaxed because, you know, we sold out of our block pretty early. Ooh, we sold out. Yeah, ended up having a bunch of waiting lists. And I've already got people booking at other hotels. Not just one or two, several booking at other hotels. And once I knew we were selling out, I did a spreadsheet of 14 hotels within a mile from this location. 14?

[00:04:43] Yeah, the setup is so close to each other. We have, like, the Holiday Inn is practically in the parking lot of Bass Pro Shop. Got it. Okay, their parking lot butts up to it. Okay. Across the street from Trustmark, the Holiday Inn Trustmark, is Trustmark Baseball Park where we used to have the Braves. Now it's the Mud something. Mud hens? Mud dogs or something like that.

[00:05:13] Mississippi Mud Monsters. Mud Monsters. That's it. Thank you. You just looked it up for me. I bet. I appreciate it. Well, see, I just hadn't, I haven't gone to watch them yet. So I didn't know what, I knew they were called Mud something. But there's people going to watch them. And then they had, you know, they didn't have the banana people, but they had a league like theirs there. And they sold that place out. So they have a lot of action. I know Keith Glenn came one year, a day early. He said, man, I went and called a Braves. He said, I went and called that game. That was sweet.

[00:05:42] So there's a lot to offer. Right behind the hotel is the outlet malls of Mississippi. Oh, nice. They got a ton of stores back here. And then next to Bass Pro Shop is Sam's Club. Okay. Where you can get a pizza, like a 16-inch super huge pizza for $6 or $7. Yeah. I mean, you can get a meat lover's pizza and it's a big whole pizza, $6, $7 or something like that. It's really crazy. Wow.

[00:06:11] It's the only place I know you can get a slice of pizza and a drink for under $2. Or you can get a hot dog and a drink for under $2. Damn. This is really crazy. I can't believe I do it that cheap. This is Fusier Paradise. Yeah. Well, you just got to, you know, you got to have a Sam's car to get in there. And then you've got the cheapest gas in town too. And then right across the street from it is a Hilton Garden Inn, a Home 2 Inn, a Woods Inn, a residence. I mean, just you name the hotel, they're there. And when you get to Pearson Road, which is about a little over, right at a mile, you turn left, there's four more hotels.

[00:06:41] You turn right, there's four more hotels. Straight across, I mean, there's just 15,000 eating places there. I'm just kidding. There's a lot though. There's a lot. They have, man, they have all your fast food place. They have steakhouses. They have a burger place called Mug Shots. They have a Juicies for seafood. They have anything and everything. So there's no lack.

[00:07:05] And they just opened this past month, Dutch Brothers Coffee. Dutch Brothers. There you go. Yes. That's a Southern thing. When I look to see the top coffee shops in America, the Dutch Brothers was number four. Number one was Starbucks. Number two and three, I never heard of. The number four, the Dutch Bros. So I'm going to check it out while I'm up there. It's good. Yeah.

[00:07:33] So this place is not lacking on things to do. Good. If your wife comes with you, you'll never see her until it's time to go home because there's so much to do. Oh, they put it right inside the hotel, the Dutch Brothers. Yeah. No, no, no, no, no, no, no. The Dutch Brothers is right. I mean, less than a half a mile. No, no, no. I'm just saying. They put one inside of the hotel now. Where? Inside of the hotel, I think that you guys are at. No, no, no. I wish it was. They have what they call an alumni house. That is a restaurant.

[00:08:03] Their food is so freaking good. They've got a tag on that hotel now for a Dutch Brothers, which is hilarious. Interesting. Maybe they have a deal where they have some in there. They could. They could. Like a little kiosk, maybe a Dutch Brothers kiosk or something. Yeah, they could. But actually, it's right down the street. You pass the outlet malls, and it's right there in front of Magoo's. Do you see Magoo's on the thing, Magoo's chicken? It's like Cane's, but the elite chicken meat. That Dutch Brothers is right there. Elite chicken meat.

[00:08:33] Elite chicken meat. I'm getting an educational ready. The Dutch Brothers is right beside it. And then behind it, they have a Zaxby's. I mean, there's any kind of food. They even have an out back in that outlet mall. So, I mean, they got anything. Very cool. Yeah, I don't know. But, dude, if they do have a Dutch Brothers in there, they're going to get wore out. Yeah. They good. They good. I was going to say, I'm pretty confused. Maybe it just got mistagged, but it's literally on top of the hotel that hall I am.

[00:09:02] Yeah, I don't know what that's about. But the picture of it doesn't align with what I'm seeing, so I don't really know what's going on. It's got to be the GPS maybe. It might be. The coordinates are a little too close. A little off. But enough. Close enough. Well, you know you are a long ways away. You're not wrong. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Let me see if I can see it online. Google Maps is a powerful tool. I see Sam's Club. If you, like, zoom in real tight.

[00:09:33] There's Holiday Inn. Holiday Inn. And then there's a Tesla Supercharger. Well, they have EV chargers. Wow. The charger, yeah, if you got to. There's cat. Now we're talking. See on mine. I don't know if you can see it, but see on mine. It's right there. That's Dutch Brothers. There's, that's Magoo's. Here's the outlet mall. And the hotel's right here. Wow. So I don't know why. It's just, I don't know why. It's close. Like, I zoom in real tight to the hotel.

[00:10:00] Oh, they also have a place called the Toasted Yolk Cafe. That sounds delicious. Yeah, it does. Right across the street from the Dutch Bros. That sounds yummy. Wow. But you go on the other way, going down, down, it's, the name of the street is called River, River Wind Drive. They have a Waffle House. They have a McDonald's, a Wendy's, a Ruby Tuesday's, a Shake and Steak or whatever, Steak and Shake. And stop.

[00:10:28] And also, they have 37 Mexican restaurants in that corner somewhere right around there. Don, I cannot. Korean barbecue hot pot. Maybe not 37, but there's a lot of them. So you're not lacking for food. I think you've got a side business, you know, brewing here. You could actually conduct, you know, restaurant tours, you know, on the side while you're having a tournament. You know, check this out. I think we could. But anyway, like I said, I got people staying at other hotels.

[00:10:56] So I appreciate their patience on some of them because they overbooked the hotel and they had to tell some they couldn't stay on Saturday night because they had a glitch in the software. The ISG was actually booking rooms after it was full. Oh. So, so they, and even saw, even some that booked, this is kind of a messed up deal. I'm not a hotel person.

[00:11:17] I really don't know, but there was people that booked back in May that booked for the whole week, but they had already sold out back in May on Saturday night. And they were selling rooms. They were selling the rooms out of my block. Huh? And I told them, hold on. I had a block. And they said, we're going to guarantee your block. So they had to call some people and ask them to move Saturday night. And unfortunately, some of them are some of my dearest friends. Oh. And I'm like, oh, I said, I'm so sorry.

[00:11:46] So I got a list and I got a few people I'm trying to get back in because, you know, you're always going to have cancellations right before a tournament. Yep. But they were gracious enough to go ahead and book the Saturday night at the, at the hotel. And, and one, and two of my, two, two of my friends booked and they just said, you know, we're staying two nights. We're just going to stay over to Hilton because it was 10, it was a $19 a night cheaper. And they have a free breakfast buffet. There you go. So I said, Hey, that's a win-win. A free buffet is worth 10, 15 bucks, no matter where you are, you know?

[00:12:16] So anyway, but you know, Mississippi is known to have some tough foosball players because we're right there. We have our Mississippi players and, you know, our Louisiana friends. I consider us all one tight knit community between Louisiana and Mississippi. So we have the top women players in the world and we have the top men players in the world. There you go. Uh, as far as the women, we're going to have Sullivan, Hannah, Isabel.

[00:12:45] Now, Jessica Seffleman is moving here. She's moving there. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. She's on her way. Yeah. She's on her way. She'll be there tomorrow. Yeah. And so she's going to be down there. All right. And we have Miriam. Yep. So, so, so we have a hotbed of females right down here, right? Top players. Keisha Rue. Oh, of course. We have all the, we have the females, you know, I hope I'm not leaving anybody out and I'm sorry if I do, but I mean, just the ones you see, you're going to know.

[00:13:15] Now, when it comes to guys, we have Shannon Coley. We have Michael Bates. We have Dewey Culpepper. That's Mississippi homegrown there. Bill Bell used to be here. Now he's in Louisiana, somewhere around Lafayette. And I heard he might start back playing and he is a great asset to foosball. He can play. He's the only one I know that can come back and just play so smooth. Like he never left. Blake Robertson is also from here, but he's now in Florida, of course, but we've, we've always had top players here.

[00:13:42] They're coming out, but coming out of Louisiana, we have Brandon Munoz. We have Callum Oaks and Shannon, I believe is playing with Jacob Balcos. Oh, there you go. Good combination. Yeah. And I, I'm not sure. I think I'm not sure if Brandon is playing with Dewey because they have played the last two Mississippi States and I don't know who everybody's part of it, but I did hear Warren Van Landerham's coming and he's playing with Brandon Moreland. Ooh. So they'll be, they'll be here.

[00:14:12] So, um, and Brady Wierowski, he's coming a day early and that little, that little cat, he said, Mr. Don, I'm going to be here a day early. Can you find me a place to stay Wednesday night? Huh? I'm like, well, I don't know. I don't know who I was coming, you know? So I'm trying to find somebody he can room with Wednesday night because his room is open on Thursday. Okay. So, so I'm trying to do what I can. If you're, if you're listening to this right now and you can help out Brady Wierowski by all means, you know, contact me. He, and I'll, uh, I'll get him hooked up.

[00:14:41] He just needs, he don't care if it's a floor. He just needs a place to, or a chair. He just needs a place to kick his feet up. He's young. And then he'll have, he'll have his room Thursday. So it's not like he's going to be, you know, staying a whole weekend with you. You know, when you're, when you're 17, 18, you can sleep wherever. You can do that. I know. I mean. Not anymore. Hey, that, that, when we used to go to these tournaments, I can remember in the eighties. Okay. And nineties, we would go and we would have two in each bed, somebody on the floor between

[00:15:11] them, somebody on the floor over there. Yeah. Somebody in the bathtub. Yeah. Yeah. Me and my wife went one time with another couple in another couple and we got a blow up mattress put over by the air conditioner and we were fine. Oh my God. And we stayed two days. Stack them deep in hotels. I know we stayed for two days until my room got ready. And then I'm like, forget this, you know, not ever since then, I don't think I've done that anymore. But anyway, that's, you know, that was the funnest part of the trips back then is riding together, cutting up, acting crazy. Yep.

[00:15:41] Staying safe. Yeah. I'm not, I'm not going to say any names, but if this person's listening, he knows exactly who I'm talking about. But we were, we were going, we went to St. Louis and, uh, it was the masters and, and me and this friend of mine, we, we won, I, I, I can't, I won amateur singles, amateur doubles. And that was the weekend they moved me from a rookie to an expert in one week or semi pro in one weekend.

[00:16:11] But, um, on the way back, we were going and we got pulled over before we got out of St. Louis. Really? Good. And, and the police officer was standing in the middle of the street and he pointed and pointed, you know, to pull over. So he pulled over and he gave us a speeding ticket or gave the guy driving a speeding ticket. And we like, we never saw a police officer. Then when you read the ticket, it said bear in the air. Bear in the air. That's what it said. Oh, like a helicopter.

[00:16:41] Airplane. Yes. Yeah. And he says, well, fellas, I'm not speeding again. We're not, we're going to do the speeds limit. So we did the speed limit all the way back to Mississippi. Then we got in Jackson. He said, well, we home now. I know where I'm at. Got pulled over. First corner. He put, went around the blue lights hit and he went, he said, guy, he said, guys, I'm fixing to go to jail. So I said, I said, hold on.

[00:17:11] What happened? He said, I got a ticket. I never paid for. Oh, geez. I'm like, oh man. So here we go. So I'm not mentioning names. So nobody knows this, but three people, four people. Well, three. And then, uh, so sure enough, got pulled over. He had to go to jail. And so we went and bailed him out and all the money I wanted amateur doubles and singles and what he won. It was enough to get him out. Oh boy. Lesson learned. Lesson learned. But I mean, those are memories.

[00:17:40] We'll never forget that. And it, and it, and it was not anything bad. It's just, you know, traffic infractions. You remember. I mean, I remember a lot of things. Uh, I could, I could do stories all night, but let's talk about what we really want to talk about. And that's Mississippi state. Yeah. This is a, this is a big, big time. Yeah. We're going to have some of the top players and I look for some great matches.

[00:18:07] Uh, WFT is setting everything up and they're going to have live stream that weekend. Uh, I don't know who, if anybody's commentating, we might just have guest speakers or it might be Reed or Ryan or myself. I don't know whoever pops in there. Uh, I know Hannah likes to do it sometime. Even Sullivan likes to do it. So we'll have, I don't know if he has one particular person coming or not. I don't know, but it's always going to have somebody back there. Colorful. I didn't get a message. So you didn't get a message. I did not. Well, let me go ahead and tell you, Chase.

[00:18:37] Uh, I told you this before we got started that I did get some compliments on you and Keith at the last tournament. There you go. Guys. I told them and they said, they sounded so professional. And I said, well, that's, that's cool. That's good. That's good to hear. Good to hear. We're doing a good job. So keep it up. Appreciate it. But yeah, I wasn't invited to Mississippi. I probably couldn't have gone anyway. And maybe Ryan even knew that. So we'll see. I think the only thing he's really concerned about is making sure that our majors are

[00:19:06] taken care of in the States. You know, we're going to just let anybody, it might be a lot of streaming with nobody, you know, just so you can see a good baseball, but that's basically, you know, uh, it's just like the icing of the cake is the commentators, you know, and it's always good to have them. And I hope we have some people that want to do it. Cause I know they don't want to hear me because I call mine redneck broadcast. You know, I've, I've always been from Jackson, Mississippi, and I used to call Rankin County people rednecks.

[00:19:35] And then I moved to Rankin County and lived there for 30 something years. So I am now, I call myself a redneck all the time. Cause you might not understand me unless you know how to hear Southern people talk. But now that I've been retired for five years and on the farm, it's done got worse. You know, the only time I need translation from you is, is when you're talking about, uh, Southern food, then, then I need translation sometimes, but that's pretty much it. Well, you get me started and I'll start not understanding myself sometimes.

[00:20:02] You know, uh, people get a kick out of hearing me talk sometimes. And you know, my wife, she's one of the, one of my worst critics, I guess when I do videos and I talk, she says, you talk too much and too long and you don't make sense sometimes. I said, that's what they love. That's why we love you, Donald. They love to hear the truth, no matter how funny it sounds. They're the best, the best guest for that. That's for sure.

[00:20:30] We don't have to worry about, there's never a dull moment, man. That's key. That's important. Uh, you know what, there, this, this takes me back to, uh, the nineties when I was interviewing, uh, various, uh, performers, uh, stars, rock stars, whatever the case. And every once in a while you'd get a, you'd sit down and do an interview and we're talking live now, so you can't take it back. You'd sit down and you start asking questions and you get this. Uh-huh. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

[00:21:00] Yeah. And so, so you have to kind of go, okay, Hey, listen, let's, uh, let's have you play it soon. Let's, uh, have you, you know, what do you got? Oh, all right. That happens. You won't ever get that from me. Oh, I know. Oh, I know. It's, it's, you know. We'll talk about anything. We'll talk about chickens. We'll talk about goats. We'll talk. By the way, if anybody lives in the South and you want a male or female goat, I have two I'm giving away.

[00:21:30] You just seen the text messages I was getting from Tom earlier when he's like, oh, we're going to get Donald. I think tonight. Then a long explanation. It's like, that's it. And I knew, I knew chickens would come up. I knew the topic would come up. There's no question. It's actually, it's actually what he said. He's like, you know, we're talking about chickens. Right. We're talking about chickens. Look, I love my girls. I hadn't bought eggs in years. Four years I hadn't bought eggs. Man. There you have it.

[00:21:59] And I was, and when it went up to like six, $7 a carton, I was selling for four, $5 a carton. There you go. Actually, I was making enough money to pay for my chicken fee. So that was a good thing. Yeah. But no, we get, we have some goats, but my, my daughter, she's really the one that does the goats and the rabbits and, and, uh, dogs. And, um, I do the chicken. That's great. Well, yeah, she had, you know, you said you don't like rabbits, but she actually sells meat rabbits. Oh, I see what you're saying. You know, that's different. Yeah.

[00:22:28] Only purpose in life for them is to be born and be sold and be eaten. There you go. Well, now this, this, this rabbit, the mama rabbit is so big. You have to use two arms to hold her. Wow. Those meat rabbits are big. If you, if you know. Huh? Yes. They are big. Wow. But she's got some of those. She got some of them that you call lion head, which looks like a lion. They look pretty sharp. Yeah. Yeah. And then she's got some other cute ones.

[00:22:55] But anyway, now the goats, uh, she, she decided she wanted to start doing lambs instead of goats. Hmm. She wants to, she wants to keep two goats and get rid of two. And then she wants to start raising lambs. And I told her that's when she moves, she can. Okay. She wants to do lambs and raise them. Cause I mean, there's a market for buying lamb. Of course. Yeah. Fresh lamb. There must be, there must be a market for it. Cause she bought one. There's no better lawnmower in the world than a goat though. Right? Yeah.

[00:23:25] Yeah. Seriously. No better lawnmower on the planet. And do you know what their favorite food is? No idea. Poison Ivy. Poison Ivy? Even better. Really? Poison Ivy. Yes, sir. No kidding. They love it. The only downside is I'm allergic to poison Ivy. Ooh. And when they get to eating it and I don't know it and I go pick them up and pet them, the next day I'm having little spots pop up on me. Oh. Roasted. Yeah. So I got to, look, I keep this in stock. Yep. There you go. That's the stuff.

[00:23:56] Oh yeah. But if you catch it, you can use that 30 something dollar soap that they sell at Walmart that you want and it's gone. But you know, can't afford that kind of soap. This is, my wife keeps that in stock by the way because she's always in the garden and yeah. Yeah. It'll get you. Yeah. No question. The only thing really you got to wear around here is poison Ivy and yellow jackets. Hmm. Now I think your yellow jackets might be a little larger than ours here in the Northeast. I have a feeling. Just saying.

[00:24:25] They hurt. Look. Yeah. They're not fun. Mark Metairese loves this story because it is so funny. And he, every time we talk about it, he just starts bouncing around laughing at me. But one time I was out on my back porch. Okay. And I had my coveralls from where I hunted this past, you know, that year. And I said, let me get my coveralls. So I go to pick up my coveralls and I feel them vibrate. And I went, whoa, that ain't supposed to do that. And all of a sudden here, here they come. I turn around.

[00:24:56] I'm running, they pop them in the back. That's Mark calling right now. He's probably listening. Don't tell that story. But anyway, so I go running around the corner, popping me. Ow, ow. I got bit about 12 times. I get to the door and I open it and the chain's up. Oh. And my wife's in the house. I said, come open the door. And she didn't hear me. I said, come open the door. She said, I'm away. I said, nevermind. I knocked the door open. Wow.

[00:25:26] And then she says, you brought two of them in with you. And she's doing this one. And anyway, it was a mess. It was a mess. Sorry to hear about that, man. That's, that's. They got a scent on you, man. They come. Oh, wow. And look, I ended up having to go to the hospital. Did you? Yeah. Oh yeah. I'm allergic to them. I swear. Dang, that's serious. I had about, I had about 14 or 16 when it was over with. And I went up there and they gave me a dose of Benadryl and said, we believe you're going to be all right. They watched me and let me go about an hour later.

[00:25:57] Man, that's dangerous stuff. It's dangerous in the country. And, uh, my latest thing was I killed a snake about six foot long. It was about five and a half foot long. And normally you wouldn't kill a snake like that. A rat snake. Oh yeah. That's good. Or chicken snake, you know, but, um, I'm going to try to show you a picture and see, I'm not going to show you the actual size. It is. It was really big. And the only, and I tell you right now, the only reason I did it is cause I go in there and I, and I collect my eggs. Right.

[00:26:27] Oh yeah. And I mean your eggs. They'll do that. But it wasn't the fact that eating my eggs is the fact that when I went to reach my hand in there to grab the eggs, can you, let me see if I can get this picture just right. Yeah. A little, a little, almost. Is it green? Up a little. Okay. Do you see that snake in there? Oh, there it is. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I went to reach my hand around here to grab them and I saw that and jerked my hand back and I'm like, Oh my goodness.

[00:26:56] So I got a rake and I pulled it outside. Then of course chopped his head off. And here's a picture of me holding it. I don't know if you'll be able to see that. What kind of a snake is it after all? It's up. It's up. It's up. Even with my head all the way to the ground. Wow. So that's going to be a rat snake, Tom. Okay. Um, they're, they're not venomous. They're actually really good. Beneficial. Cause they eat mice and rodents and all this small stuff. Oh, there you go. I can see it now. I have a farm. Yeah. That's a good sign. You see me do that?

[00:27:26] Yeah. My daughter's head. Jeez. She says, what kind of snake is it? And I just put my hand under my throat. A dead one. Well, I mean, you know, if he's beneficial, a rat snake. I mean, you know, um, I mean, we have what we call garter snakes pretty much in this part of the country. And occasionally. Well, I think pretty much, I think pretty much a garter snake, a rat snake, a chicken snake, they're all about the same thing. They have to kill rodents and stuff like that. But, but again, if I reach my hand in there to grab an egg and I get bit, I don't care if it's venoms or not.

[00:27:56] I'll probably die from the heart attack. Yeah. Right. You know? So, so no, no snake period, but the garter snake, you know, they supposed to help out too. Oh yeah. Yep. Garter snakes don't get near as big as rat snakes. Yeah. There's small, small, small animals. Yeah. Yeah. But who wants to get bit? Nobody. Nobody. But rat snakes typically won't bite a person. Typically. Okay. Well. They're, uh, they don't have like the crazy like fang thing going on. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

[00:28:23] Well, I did kill a moccasin in front of the chicken pen at about a foot and a half. That's a different deal. Different deal. Those are bad news bears. Yeah. Yeah. So we got rid of it and hopefully all the rest of them. But anyway. Um, but that's, that's kind of like every day here. And I got it to where my kids don't run out. My grandkids don't run out unless we're out there with them. Cause you know, kids run and play. We used to do it when we were kids and we didn't realize the dangers we could have gotten. Oh yeah. Of course. As grownups, we're more aware of it, you know, but that's one thing you will not have

[00:28:52] to worry about at Mississippi state. We're not going to have any chickens in there. No goats, no snakes, hopefully no snakes. Uh, well, yeah, we'll have a bunch of snakes in there, but it'd be on the foot. Right. Different, different, different kind of snake. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. But, uh, uh, speaking of the talent, I think we talked about that before we came on the air, but as far as our, I don't know, did I say any names yet? Or was that? You've, you've named dropped a couple. Yeah. Okay.

[00:29:19] Just being from the country, you know, and, and 61 years old now, I forget things. You're absolutely right. It's okay. We still love it. You're talking about the women, the women of, uh, of foosball. My wife tell me that all the time, you know, about that, you know, so I'm used to it, but that's okay. That's, you know, I can tell you my real. This is a staple of a Southerner right here. You're drinking from a mason jar. Oh, no. And that's not necessarily Southern. We have that, uh, that, that phenomenon here. Yeah. I used to go to. All mine are dirty.

[00:29:47] So, uh, all my mason jars are dirty. We had a, uh, a local, uh, pub that used to do mason jar Friday nights. So you, you pay two bucks for a mason jar with whatever booze you, you know, wanted in that, you know, and of course they put mostly ice in it, but still. So it might just water. Yeah. But yeah, yeah. Got my honey. Oh, there you go. Yes, sir. Very nice. So, so when it comes to, uh, just, I mean, the, the events in general, because every year it seems like there's a bit of, um, playing around with the events.

[00:30:16] Are you doing flight format for, uh, for Mississippi state? You know, I'm not doing flight format. You know, me and Ryan talked about that and, um, you know, he's going to have some, some bigger States that will start doing the flight format. Okay. Uh, if I have over 160 players and that looks like, that's what we're going to start doing. I might flirt with that myself. Um, but as Mississippi state and, you know, I kind of stay on top of running things because I kind of used to doing that.

[00:30:42] You know, we never really finished that late doing double elimination. So I'm just doing double elimination and everything, but our late night events, we have a, we have a master limited, a handicap, a DYP. And then, uh, I think expert mix. Those are all going to be single elimination. Okay. And, but, but the other events are all gonna be two out of three. I'm not doing championship. I'm not doing that. Uh, are the flights yet? Because, um, you know, we, we, we're not too big for it yet.

[00:31:12] That's really something you really need when you have a ton of people and you, you know, we couldn't do a 300 or 400 person tournament with all these events, double elimination. We would never get through it the first night or the second night, you know, but in the future, I would like to see that now with a small tournament, like what we have, if we did a flight tournament, we would have a lot of time. Nothing's going on. Hmm. Okay. See what I'm saying? Yeah.

[00:31:39] We would have dead times and that, that kills the vibe at a tournament. You always need something going. Oh, absolutely. And, uh, so, so, but with big tour events, you got to have it to keep things flowing smoothly. And it's, and it's kind of, it's not, I wouldn't say it's exciting, but it's, we're under a time gun when we're actually doing the flights. We have to make sure everybody's entered, ready to go. And the events start on time.

[00:32:08] That is a big thing there. If they start on time, people get to their matches and get them played. It'll run smooth. Sorry. That's Mark again. All right. So here's a question. Will you be having, I'm on the radio. Do you want to get on here too? All right. Let me, let me call you back in a few minutes, bud. This is hilarious. He got a lot. Yeah. Uh, yeah.

[00:32:37] He's stressed out to the max cause he's always doing all the awards and everything. Oh, right. And, uh, yeah. Yeah. And, and you know, something else we did too. We sell shirts at every tournament that we have and we pre-sell the shirts. Oh, that way we're not stuck with a bunch of shirts. And this year we've already pre-sold 60 shirts. Damn. 62 shirts. And so we only ordered, well, actually it might be a little more. It's, it's about 60, 60 something shirts and we're only going to have about 12 or 13 extra

[00:33:07] to sell to the public. Okay. And, and yeah. Yeah. And we'll, we'll sell those out. We always have people wanting them after we do it. And we always say we'll do a list, but we have to get another 50 really to justify doing it. Or it costs too much. But, um, anyway, back to the tournament though. Um, if we ever get too big to where we start running late on events, we will start doing a flight format. Because that, that is the future.

[00:33:33] You, you know, when you're going to play, you know how long you got to the next flight and you know, when the finals are. But until we get real big, you know, people like double elimination and they, they get a chance to do it, you know. But even then, if you start getting too many people, even the people who love double elimination, I always complain about wanting things done faster. Well, the only way to do that is change the format. Yeah. Yeah. So me being a tournament director, I see both sides of it.

[00:33:59] But as tournament director, I feel like that's probably the best solution I've ever heard doing the flights. Now, some people don't like them and I get it, but they don't run tournaments and they don't, you know, like say for example, the biggest complaint I heard from one particular person. And that was only one I heard it from the whole weekend is they, uh, they played flight A and they beat somebody and they got put out. Well, then they played in the B format and got back in.

[00:34:30] And qualified in a B. Well, they had to play them again in the elimination, but this time they got beat by them. Huh. I was thinking they never, they never should have had to play them. Well, you know, it's, it's all about, I know it's, it's all about where you finish in the bracket and, and, and how you get out there and everything. Mm-hmm . . . So they couldn't understand. I beat them once and now they beat me and, and, you know, I, you know, they just didn't understand what, didn't understand basically how it went.

[00:34:56] But after explained it to them, it still didn't feel good to them, but they kind of understand how it worked. Understood it. Yeah. Well, yeah. The best way of explaining that to me is, okay, you lost, you went to the loser's bracket. Maybe a given they didn't technically lose, but now you guys have to play each other on the loser's bracket, essentially. Yeah. To try and get back to it. So it's six and one half dozen in the other. Yep. Well, what I try to explain to people is they're so wrapped up. Well, I've only lost once. Well, it's not a double elimination.

[00:35:26] Right. Yeah. It's not a double elimination. It's a flight format, single elimination. And you lose once in each flight and you're done. You know, that's, that's it. And see, and see what people, what people kind of really don't realize. And it's really a kind of a no brainer is you losing flight a, when you go to flight B, you ain't got to worry about those players again, because all the people that kick your butt are probably going to be in flight A. So flight B gives you a better chance. Right.

[00:35:54] You know, if we, if we ever get big enough and I, and I, and I probably, I guess it's okay to say this. Ryan can just tell me I'll keep my mouth shut. But, but say, for example, we have 600 people sign up for open singles. I could see having a flight A, B, C, D. There you go. Or an A, B, C. An A, B, C. Or A, B, C, D. Expandable. Yes, you could do that.

[00:36:22] You could have, you could have flight A and B play for the money. Flight C and D play for consolation prizes, awards or whatever. Yeah. So there's a lot of things you could do with that. Or you can let all the winners go play for it all and all the, you know, and just be done with it. Yeah. So there's a lot you can do. So are you going to have the tablets at Mississippi State? The tablets. If they had at Nationals? The tablets will be there. Good.

[00:36:46] So I taught, yeah, I taught with Reed and, and Ryan and all the bugs that we kind of had really, really wasn't bugs. They were limited. We lost some internet at the facility. That hurt one thing. Well, when we first got them started, yes, they had some minor bugs, but that's the good thing about having Reed at the tournament. He can fix it right then and there. And he did on the majority of everything.

[00:37:12] But when we lost the internet, we were down for about 20 minutes to an hour, getting swapped over to the hub. I immediately went to my hotspot on my phone and kept the tournament running, but we lost the tablets for maybe 20 minutes, 40 minutes, something like that. Not too bad. But once we got them back up, we, we, we didn't lose them again. Now, sometimes different names would pop up and that was some of the glitches that he was trying to work on. I said, you go ahead and, you know, I, I was able to verify them up there at the stage. And I told them, Hey, we got you.

[00:37:42] We got you. We always have a backup, but that's, that's over now. And so they're going to bring it to Mississippi. It's going to start being, that's a part of the package of using WFT at all tournaments that people love it. It's not extra cost either. It's a part of it. So streaming and using those tablets is all a part of the software that you get through WFT. So it's really a no brainer. They had the computers, they have the lights for tables, tables, all the wiring and all that. You know, you just hire them and it's done. Yeah. You don't have to worry about renting it yourself.

[00:38:11] So that's pretty good there. But yeah, the tablets, you log in, it shows you're there. If your opponent's not there in six minutes, they get put on their first recall and they get a text. Now, again, texting, if your phone service is not great, you only get one bar, you could miss a text. Okay. Possibly. So it's not, it's not foolproof, but it is an extra. You always want to have notifications cut on your phone.

[00:38:38] So you can get notifications from the tournament and you'll never miss those, you know, unless, yeah, unless you don't have good service. And I don't know how that works, but, uh, it will call your name over the microphone. And if you hear your name over the microphone, you are getting a text. And, uh, so, um, after four minutes, it does a second and final recall and you get another four minutes. So we went from 12 minutes to actually getting everybody 14 minutes to get to the table. Hmm. Okay. Okay. From when it starts.

[00:39:07] Uh, now we did have this happen a couple of times and, and I had to go talk to the people. They had their partner's number and they put it in. Oh, okay. Wait a second. Yeah. When I did it, when I identified who did it, I went and told them you can't do that. I said, Oh, well, they said they were on their way. I thought it would help. I said, no, it don't help. As a matter of fact, Ryan is thinking of a way that we could, uh, reprimand people that do that, get caught doing that.

[00:39:36] Or people that come and put their code in. Oh, I'm going to the bathroom. I'll be back. And then they're gone. So we're still going to have verifiers that, that, that look at the tables when the pads go green and everybody's supposed to be there. And we see a match is not playing. That's when the verifier will go over there and identify who's not there. Now they're on a clock. We're going to charge them. This is not in stone, but this is what Ryan had said. I recommend it to that. If you're not there, that's a timeout.

[00:40:06] Is it? There you go. And three minutes, if you're not there, it's another timeout. Interesting. Interesting. In your first game. Yeah. And if they're not there at the end of that, you've lost your first game. Oh boy. And I guess, and we hadn't referred, and we might do the second game the same way because we can't, you know, we, we need help from the players to keep things running smoothly. You know, we could, Brian and Reed, they can come up with the neatest gadgets to help run a tournament.

[00:40:36] But if the players don't do their part. Yeah. Well, that's always a problem. Yeah. Because I know that the concept of an app is in the future. Yeah. What my argument would be is scannable QR code on your phone. When you walk up to the table. Do it like, yeah. Now it's connected to your ID. There's no punching in the code. You scan it with your phone. Everybody's got a phone. I'm sure they could do that.

[00:41:05] I'm sure that wouldn't be nothing but some programming for them. Yeah. That's a good idea. I got you. Unless. Unless I have my partner's phone. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Yo, Sean, give me your phone, bro. No, no, no, no. Hey, Chase, I've sent you a picture of my QR code. Ah. Oh. Well, but he still would have had to have been at the table. No. I sent you a picture. Oh, if I could take a picture and send it to him, like, I'm at the table. Yeah. Yeah. Here's my QR code. Oh, there's always a way around it. Yeah. There's always a way around it. But anyway. Okay.

[00:41:34] Come on. Now we're just getting silly. Hey, look, it's like this. I, uh, I talked to these people. They were totally embarrassed. I did not know that. I said, yeah, don't do it again. Oh, I promise. I'll never do it again. I 100% did it. Yeah. You did? 100%. Did you really? All right. I'm going to let you in on a secret. I did too. Oh. I was guilty of it and didn't get caught. But I'll say this. Here's the thing. Here's the thing.

[00:42:04] And I'll be dead honest about it. I knew where Sean was and where he was and coming. And I was doing the flip. I was getting everything else ready to go. So the second he walked up, all he had to do was wrap up. So it was, it wasn't like we were, he was 10 minutes away. He was at the entrance of the ballroom walking to the table. All right. But here's the thing. If you wouldn't have put that code in, would you have been caught up on your first recall? No. Absolutely not. I don't know.

[00:42:33] I don't know if I believe that or not. 100% honesty. 100% honesty. I would not have been. Well, I put. I was just doing it to try and keep things rolling. All right. Well, here, here's the thing. I was playing with Mark. Right. Okay. That's your own fault. First of all. Mark, Mark never left the place. Right. And, and so I went over there and I put my code in. He said, what are you doing? I said, I put my code in. I don't know what my code is. I don't have a code. I said, you didn't put a code when you set up your thing. So I went up there to the top, set up his code.

[00:43:03] One, two, three, four. Boom. Thanks for letting us all know. Look, no, he changed it. He changed it. But I'm just saying. So I just said, okay, I called us up. Now look. So I put it in there. Then he gets mad at me. I wanted to do it. I said, you can do it next match. So he did it. But I did do it that one time. But anyway, now, you know, we got to watch for that because, you know, if somebody takes 20 minutes to start their match, we done lost five minutes. That's different. Okay. So that's what I'm saying.

[00:43:32] At the end of 14 minutes, in three minutes is 17 minutes. They're going to get charged with timeout. Then at the end of that three minutes, it's going to be 20 minutes. That's a second timeout. That should be a loss of a game. You know, I feel like. And so we got to keep the tournament going. I mean, according to the way ITSF used to do it, and I guess I still do, three minutes. If you're not there, you're on a recall, three minutes. If you're not there in the next three minutes, you're down a game. Woo. Harsh. And you get another recall.

[00:44:02] And then if you're not there after the next one, you lose your second game. If it's two out of three, you're done. So, I mean. Forfeit. That's. Yeah. And I remember when we was in France, I was playing downstairs in the gymnasium. And I had just won, put my results in, and I was climbing up them steps. When I got to the top, Donna Wilson, you're on recall. And I'm like. Come on. Give me time to walk up the steps. Yeah. And I got, I mean, I made it in time, but it looks like, goodness gracious.

[00:44:32] They're serious about that. But you know what? That's why they can have 1,000, 1,500 people show up at a tournament. Right. And, of course, everything they have is single elimination, too. You know, so. And they do the round robins. Right, the round robin. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, the round robin. A little different. And see, Ryan, Ryan looked at that. But when we started doing the numbers and the tables, or when he started doing the numbers and tables, you need a lot of tables. Yeah. Oh, yeah. To handle. Of course.

[00:44:59] You know, ITSF only does four divisions. Mm-hmm. Men, women, senior, junior. We have all that and more. We have more. They only have four events. Yeah. One event per day, right? That's it. They do four singles, four doubles, four classic, and then team competition. You cannot hold that in USA and make enough money to cover your events. Right. You know?

[00:45:28] So that's why I like the concept. It's fun. You get to play with different people. And it is fun. But for a tournament where promoters are trying to, you know, make a little bit of money but also have enough events for everybody where they can play. Yeah, keep it going. You don't have your beginners and rookies and amateurs and experts. They're in their 20s to 40s play Masters that will kick your butt. Mm-hmm. Like 15 to nothing. Yeah.

[00:45:56] So, I mean, you know, so that's why we have the different categories. And, you know, a lot of the players come overseas. They say they love all the different events because they get to play more. It's not just one event that day and I'm out and then I'm out. You know, so they like it, you know. And so, you know, that's why we have a lot of them come over and play. But, again, I know I keep drifting away from Mississippi State. No, no. But it's just all foosball. It's all foosball. Yeah. So, we are going to have the tablets there. That's awesome.

[00:46:25] I'm looking forward to working on them and doing good. It's going to help cut down on verifiers where you don't need but one or two that can just go around and manage it. So, but you'll always need people to work the tournament. It's not that it's trying to get rid of people. It's just trying to help the tournament run more efficiently. Yeah. And stay on a good timely manner. That brings up another question. And I haven't gotten to ask this to anybody yet. And this is off topic, so I apologize for Mississippi. But we ran them at Nationals.

[00:46:52] Do you believe that it helped run Nationals a lot better? Yeah. Overall, I believe it helped the players get there a little sooner because I don't remember four for them, but maybe three or four people. That was it. But this is the part that I didn't even bring up yet that I love. When we do these tablets and it starts, it's all automated.

[00:47:22] Automotive, automotive, automated. Yeah. Okay? Okay. So if somebody gets put on recall, they can't be mad at me. If somebody gets on second recall, they can't be mad at me. Yep. And it tells them right on the tablet. Yeah. It does. And when the tablet comes up, and this is so funny, when the tablet comes up there, it says, so-and-so is now available to forfeit. Yep. So it's telling me. I had to come up to you about it. Right. Right.

[00:47:51] I was one of the very first ones somebody forfeit to, and I had to come up to you. I'm like, hey, I don't know what the deal is. Am I supposed to come to you? Am I supposed to stay at the table? Yeah. Well, usually what we're going to do, and this was new to us too, but what we're going to start doing is we try to announce, okay, so-and-so, I give them one last chance. It says they're available to forfeit. So I say, Chase Pennell, are you in the room? Raise your hand if you're in the room. Once, twice. Okay. You forfeit, and I announce the other person's name. I got your results.

[00:48:21] And boom, I do it. Okay? That way it speeds things along. Keep it. But, you know, when somebody gets forfeited out, they can't be mad at me. Yeah. I call them mad. You got text messages. You got your name called on the thing. How many transfers do you want? Now, again, the text messaging is not foolproof because it's all going to base on your service and on, you know, it's still something to help you, but it's not the gospel, right? Yeah.

[00:48:50] You need to be watching charts and getting notifications. Don't put all your faith just in the texting because texts, you know, there's times I get texts from people that they sent the next day, and I don't know why I got it today. Oh, I did that yesterday. You know, just stupid stuff happens, you know. But, you know, if you're there for a tournament, I remember when I used to come play foosball and I wasn't working for Tornate or working those tournaments, I kind of stuck around in the room. And if I left, I'd say, hey, listen for my name. I'll be right back. I was there to play foosball. Yeah.

[00:49:20] I wasn't all about. Unless I had the poops or something, I had to go to my room. Then I'll go to my room. But, you know, somebody's listening for me. But, you know, I didn't ever have that issue. You know, I just always was ready to play. Yeah. No, not to defend this situation that I found myself in, but this is back in the classic in Vegas. We were doing flight format. And I forgot what category.

[00:49:48] It might have been amateur doubles, something like that. Anyway, I was waiting three hours, maybe three and a half hours to finally play. And meanwhile, I was starving. I mean, it was probably what? 11 o'clock at night. And so myself and Iceman stepped down to grab something to eat. I figured they're not going to call this match. It's just not going to happen. And of course, as soon as we went out to eat and we sat down, boom, I got a text.

[00:50:18] So I took my food to go. That's exactly how it works. Got an Uber back to the tournament within six minutes. And then they canceled the match. You left the facility? They canceled it? Oh, you left. You didn't only leave the building. You had to get an Uber back. Yes. And then they canceled your match. Well, that's unheard of, like canceling your match. Yeah. No. That's an inside pull. It worked out. I mean, we didn't play until like 1.30 in the morning in that particular match.

[00:50:45] But yeah, I won't do that again. All right. Let me tell you, this is how it's supposed to work. And I've had Ryan talk to me over and over. The flight formats, once we start flight formats, that flight is the most important thing. It has to finish on time in order to start B. B has to finish on time to start elimination. So that's supposed to be the top priority.

[00:51:11] Now, if you have an amateur flight going and say, well, let's say open is most important because that's really the only one that has a scheduled finals. Right. So the elimination has to get done in time for the finals. And so far, we've been close, but we still hadn't hit it down on the head on men's yet. Okay. Women's, we've been okay. Men's, we've been close. I think 20 minutes was all we was off at nationals. It wasn't that bad. Right.

[00:51:39] And, you know, when you're seeing, oh my gosh, you got people playing different events. And I got a story too about nationals that's just going to blow people away. But, but we try to do the best we can by getting them going. But it, it, it takes the people. Now, in your case, you probably had somebody who's waiting on that was playing in another flight, another event, and he just kept screwing things up. But Ryan's goal is you should never wait more than 40 minutes for a match. There you go. Okay. That's the goal.

[00:52:09] If, you know, if, if it's like we got somebody in two things, flight goes first and then maybe call that one and then go right back to that one. Cause that way you won't never have over a 30, 30 or 40 minute way. That'd be great. That'd be perfect. And we're, and we're trying to watch that. They're trying to run it into the software too, you know, to where it logic thinks it on everything. We also have priority tabs we can set. And I'm wanting to set Mississippi up where everything's prioritized.

[00:52:34] And the thing about this software is when we look, if we see a hole, there's a feature called force match. We get forced match and that will be the next one. It will, it, what we used to have to do is go through and write stuff down, find who they are, bench them. And then when we see them all free, unbench them, let them play computer does it for you. Huh? It sees a match. It's forced. It's going to make sure the players wait and are available to play that match. So that's the thing of the past now having big holes, unless you have a Jeff Rico.

[00:53:06] Yeah. He was in every event. Yeah. Now, now people said, golly, y'all didn't finish. Well, first of all, they said, y'all ain't gonna finish till eight or nine o'clock. I said, we'll be three by seven. Just, I just threw it out there. Okay. Well, I'm sitting up there. I'm dozing. Miriam took a picture at 5. AM and I was like in the chair and she sent it to me. And I'm like, where'd you get that? And then she said at five o'clock, but anyway, uh, so we're sitting here and then I'm sitting about to doze off again. The Jennifer says they just shook hands. It's over.

[00:53:37] I said, cool. It's just, oh my God. It's six 59 in the morning. Expert singles final. Yeah. And she looked, how, how'd you know? And actually I would just say, if things go right, it should be over. But here's the thing that Jeff Rico was in every freaking time. Yeah. Yeah. He was in a lot. Look, he played back to back to back to back to back.

[00:54:04] Starting at around 10 or 11 o'clock at night. He was back to back on every match. Whenever his match was done, he'd shake hands, take off front. I said, oh, stop, stop, stop. You can't go nowhere. Yeah. You can't. Yeah. He said, can I please go to the bathroom? I said, yes. Okay. Only place you can go. So that right there made us finish at six 59. And that's the only reason there's no way we can stop it. We've all had our monsters. Wait, uh, Brady Wabowski was one of them at a tournament.

[00:54:34] To do it. Yeah. Yeah. Uh, uh, Vera even did it one time when she first started, she tied up all the lower divisions and then she would play an open to, we've always had, you know, um, I was that guy. Yeah. There's always that guy, you know, Jacob Balcos has done it. Yep. Sure. There's always somebody that does it. You always got somebody. And this was Jericho's and I, you know, I really wish they'd have bumped him on up to maybe pro status, but you know, well, at least expert, I mean, cause he's a, he was an

[00:55:03] amateur in singles and rookie in doubles. I can't believe that. A rookie. Yeah. He's straight amateur. He was, he was rookie in doubles and he didn't win rookie doubles. He got second. He got second. Well, you made it to the finals, you know, uh, that's different from winning it. Right. Different when it was true. That's not the same thing. I promise you get one chance to win. Right. Everybody's easy at one chance to win, but you know, he had a great game against Tony. He, he, he, he didn't slop him to death. I watched it. Yep. He didn't slop him.

[00:55:33] Tony might not, Tony might not have been a hundred percent on his game, but Tony wasn't giving up. He was fight. He was fighting. It's just, it, things happen like that sometime, you know? And I bet you when they play it, it'd be a different story next time. Cause I'm sure. Oh, no doubt. He. Yeah. Yeah. You know, I don't think he underestimated. Tony never underestimates anybody, but this guy come out on all cylinders go.

[00:56:01] And that dude's going to move up. He's going to mess us up at worlds too. He's going to be in all the back. You guys can't bump him until after worlds, right? No, no, I can't. It's. Oh, he, he got, he got bumped up in rookie. I was going to say rookie. Yeah. He didn't go up in doubles because he plays high in some other doubles. Right. He was in another. I think it was an expert finals. Yes. I can look it up. And doubles. He was in some other doubles, but yeah, he got bumped. Well, it's not our call. It's the points committee's call. Yeah. Well, I mean. That's the thing about it. It just seems. I don't have control over the points.

[00:56:31] I don't have control over the points. It's all the points committee. And they, they said, you know, we're not putting everybody up until after worlds, but he did go up in doubles because he was in some finals and doubles. And it's not like he's from Europe or something. Let's talk about that real quick. Yeah. Yeah. He got second in rookie doubles. He got ninth in open singles, third in amateur doubles, ninth in expert doubles. First in amateur singles, second in expert singles, second expert mixed.

[00:57:02] Dang. Yeah. Wow. That's a good, a lot of good finishes. For a rookie. No less. Yeah. For a rookie. Yeah. Yeah. And doubles amateurs and single points. He was already an amateur in singles. And he's not a new player. He's from Washington state. Right. So he's not a new player, not a new player. I thought he was from, oh yeah. Washington. Okay. Yeah. He's from Washington state. He's not a new player. He's just been putting in the time. He's shooting a front pin like Euro style. On a Bungie. Yeah. And he's, and he's perfected it on a tornado. Damn.

[00:57:32] I mean. Good for him. He's going to be a good force to be reckoned with. And his passing was, I mean, if you pass on Tony, you know how to pass. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. That's true. Yeah. It wasn't a slouch and he wasn't, he wasn't crapping the ball in. He might've made one or two, but that happens in voosball. You know. No, I, I, I, I had to DM up, you know, and I, I played him in, uh, in rookie doubles and I was just, I was shocked. I was like, dang, this guy, there's just no way. I mean, I, I mean, you see, you see good rookies. There's no question about that.

[00:58:01] But this guy was just, you know, transcendent. I'm like, this is not a rookie. What the heck is going on? Where's he from? What's what's going on? So, but when we found out he was an American, I thought, I thought for sure he maybe had just, you know, come in from Europe. Well, that's what a lot of people thought. Yeah. That's what a lot of people thought that, oh, y'all don't let an overseas player come in and he's playing rookies, killing everything. No, he's from here. Huh? Wow. So, uh, I mean, he eventually might've come from somewhere, but, um, but anyway, uh, you know, he had a great weekend.

[00:58:30] You know, we do have it wrote in our, uh, other things that if you're a beginner and you place an upper events, you're no longer a beginner. You can't play beginner cause you're not a beginner. Correct. And some people thought that was written into the other events. Like if you place, if you play in the finals of an upper event, you automatically move to that event. When they come, when they brought that to my attention, I looked at everything and it don't say anything whatsoever. Hmm.

[00:58:59] That used to be a hidden rule. It was a, it was a known, it was a known hidden rule back on. Yeah. Yeah. And so, um, I think that you did that to me. It happened to you. You did it. I did. I didn't have no control over raising people up. Hold up. Check this out. Warrior. I won as an expert with an amateur goalie pro doubles at the tour kickoff. And you were in charge of the USTSA points.

[00:59:30] Yes, you were. I didn't play when they had warrior. I know that, but I quit. But you, but you were still in charge of the USTSA points. No, I never was a part of USTSA, only USTSO. And we didn't start until 2019 with me. Hmm. I promise you. Look, go ahead. I know I've never been a part of USTSA. Only USTSO. USTSO started in 2016. USTSA was around back before me on that.

[00:59:59] I played foosball, but I wasn't part of the organization. Hmm. I think it was a guy named Larry. Was it Larry Davis? It might have been Larry Davis. Yeah. Yeah. He was up here in Tennessee. He should have took care of you. But, but yeah, that's, that's one that was doing it back then. I'm going to look it up. So this is not a new problem that, you know, somebody. They bumped me on USTSA. Yeah. Well, Hey, like I said, I went, I went to my very first tournament was a tour kickoff in New Orleans. I got second in rookie singles.

[01:00:29] They automatically bumped me to an amateur. I go to St. Louis at Masters. I went first place amateur singles, first place amateur doubles. Now I'm a 1793 semi pro. Wow. Pro starts at 1800. Yeah. Me and Billy Barnes goes to Atlanta. We beat the number one seeded team of, of Russ King and Richard White. The only reason we beat them because we play them every weekend. They used to come up to Mississippi. We'd go down to New Orleans. Oh, you knew their game. You know, we only two or three hours away. So we knew their game. Yeah. And so we beat them the number one seed back then.

[01:00:59] They had Elo. They shot me up to like 2,200 points. And so I turned, I turned from a rookie to a pro in one year. Ooh. How does that happen? I, 1990, I was a pro. Yeah. And, and I still played, I still had fun, but I, you know, my winning was kind of done. I had good games, but I kind of quit foosball raising, help raising my kids and teaching, you know, T-ball and, and all that kind of stuff, doing scouting until a buddy of mine

[01:01:27] called me, Hey man, let's go play Mississippi state and expert doubles. I said, I can't, I'm a pro. He said, you need to check the points. So I got lowered back down to expert, I guess for not playing. I don't know, but this was like in 2003 or four, something like that. But anyway, I went and played and of course I won the expert doubles and expert singles, but I didn't get moved up and, uh, been a struggling expert ever since to about four or five years ago.

[01:01:55] I finally went back up to pro and doubles because everybody complained about me. Huh? But, but if you go look at my results, you don't see where I dominated expert. I had a couple of good wins, but that was about it, but I'm not complaining. Yeah. I mean, I understand. Yeah. Well, I mean, it's a, it's a, it's a, I have good games, you know, I have good games, you know, I mean, chase can let you know, I played him and Shannon one time had a good game. You did. Then, uh, then from the goalie.

[01:02:24] Then, then what happened the next time we played? I think y'all might've got us back. Uh-huh. Interesting. Is that the story you're going to tell? But, but, you know, I was a merely pro playing with probably an amateur or something. Who was I playing with? Mark. Yeah. I was playing with an amateur. So. I think, I can't remember. Who was I playing with when we beat y'all? Was I playing with Jamie? A guy named Jamie?

[01:02:54] Uh, who was I playing with? Was it Hughes? Yeah. Jamie Hughes. Yeah. That's right. You were. I had fun. You were. Man. Yeah. So. I'm going to tell you my worst match ever was at nationals. This nationals? Yeah. Huh. Really? Against who? Uh. Um. You don't even know, do you? Yes, I do. Mason, Connor, and Copitz. Uh.

[01:03:24] Um. Copitz? Is that it? Am I saying his name wrong? I don't know. Got me. Oh, well, anyway. They beat us 5-0. Ooh. 5-2. 5-1. I lost 15-3. Dang. I looked at Mark, and I said, I ain't never playing this game again. Connor Mason and Justin Copitz. Thank you, Louis. That's who it was. Team 42. Yep. Connor Mason and Justin Copitz. Yeah.

[01:03:54] And they beat me 5-0, 5-2, 5-1. Wow. That was so embarrassed. I was so embarrassed. I've never been beat like that before in my life. That bad. Yes, you have. And I told Mark, man, just have fun. I said, that wasn't fun. That was not fun. I'm not playing no more this weekend. I can't work and play two and really get into it. And he says, well, I know that. You got beat worse than that by me, so don't even go there. Negative. You ain't never beat me like that.

[01:04:23] I beat you 5-0, 5-1. Where? You don't remember that with Mark? I must have amnesia. I didn't miss a shot. You did? Okay. Well, I should have quit when you did that. That's why I was giving you crap about it. I'm like, how do you not remember this? You guys gave me so much crap about it for like three days after that happened. I don't want to forget. They beat me three games. That's true. That's fair. That's fair. Yeah. Usually after the second game, you get going. Right.

[01:04:52] Yeah, that's bad too. I remember now. Yeah. Because you guys kept going, you didn't have the 5-0 curse. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Jeez. But I tell you what, man. I said, that's probably Mark. So I signed up for Expert Singles. Look, I signed up for Expert Singles. And I was playing a rookie or amateur. I think his name is John Garcia. Real nice guy. John Garcia.

[01:05:22] I know John. Yeah, he's from New England. Really nice guy. Great guy. He beat the crap out of me. And after he beat me, he comes up to me and says, friend me on Facebook. I sent you a request. You need to friend me. And I don't ever go look at that stuff. So I looked. Yeah, he tried to friend me a while back. So I friended him and everything. And I told Mark, I said, I apologize. It wasn't you. It's me.

[01:05:53] But yeah, John really played good. I think in foosball, everybody has their best game against me. Interesting. Everybody wants to beat me. I get it. You're the goal. And I don't get it. Why? I'm not a bad person. I don't mouthpeak. No, no. Okay. I can actually answer this question for you. Everybody wants to smoke me. There's two reasons. One, your staff. Auto target. Okay? Auto target.

[01:06:22] Part two of that is you are the hammer. I'm a tack hammer now. There you go. There you go. I mean. I'm a tack hammer. You're the hammer, bro. Back in the day. You've got to accept it. You've got to accept it. Back in the day, I could slam a ball in there loud enough where everybody thinks somebody's hitting metal with a hammer. That's where the nickname came from. There you go. But, you know, now, I'll take it easy on this old guy. I mean. Well.

[01:06:50] I started playing seniors because it was a little easier. Now, the seniors are kicking my butt because we got some. Well. You know, I'm 61. You've got Gummison and McMillan in seniors now. Yeah. All of them, you know. And they don't smoke me, but still, they're going to win. And so, I've just got two more years until I'm 63, and then I start getting me some more Ws back on my belt. There you go. There you go. Something to look forward to, for sure. Yeah. I mean, being a promoter and playing, being at a tournament and playing. I mean, you've got too many distractions, man. I think they're just right there as a handicap.

[01:07:20] Most definitely. You know, when you're running a tournament, you're always listening. You're always thinking. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it just reflects back to at Worlds last year. Mm-hmm. I was playing with Mark. He was on the table. Then, all of a sudden, I hear, we need medical help on table so-and-so. I mean, I turned. I said, official timeout took off running. And it was Dr. Steve Chase. He fell out. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Luckily, we had an ER nurse, and we had Sullivan Rue there also. Yes.

[01:07:50] And they got him, and they was taking care of him. I was right there, by the way. Yeah. He was sweating profusely. They took his shirt off. They said, you need to get checked out. He said, I'll be all right. I just need to calm down. He got calmed down, and eventually got better. But he did finish, and he did go get checked out. Mm-hmm. But the guy had a history of a lot of heart bypasses and all kind of stuff. Yeah. And of course, he did pass away a couple weeks later or a week later from that.

[01:08:17] And come to find out, it was just what you call a ticking time bomb because he had so many heart issues, and he kind of knew it. And so his family kind of knew it. So, but anyway, he was doing the thing he loved. He played foosball. He liked helping foosball players in his dental practice. So he loved it. You know, good guy, real nice guy. Yeah. And, you know, he will be missed, you know, of course. All the Louisiana players.

[01:08:44] We got another Dr. Chase that's from Florida. And when he comes up and play, I had to make sure and say the first name because everybody looks around, and it kind of freaks them out a little bit. So that was kind of weird having two Dr. Chases on tour. Two Dr. Chases. Oh, okay. Yeah. I get it now. Okay. Dr. Chase from around here in Louisiana was a dentist, and the other Dr. Chase was a doctor of something. Mm-hmm. Business, I believe. Yeah, a business. That means he's smart with money or something, you know.

[01:09:13] But anyway, I heard that. I ran over there. If somebody's arguing on the table, I'm going to hear it. Mm-hmm. If somebody complains about something, I'm going to hear it. So I always have those distractions. There's no way I can cut that off. No way. Even when I go help Mark run his tournaments down there in Louisiana, I hear it. When I'm up here in Hattiesburg playing at the local place here, I hear it. It's just. Can't help it. It's just one of those things. Yeah. Can't hear it. Yeah. That's your job. That's what you do. That's one reason why I never really team up with somebody.

[01:09:42] Before I go, I team up at the tournament. Yeah. And that's if they can't find anybody, I will play with you and I'll do my best. But, you know, Mark already accepts the fact that I'm going to be distracted. I mean, he knows it. But we have fun playing together. Unless we get beat 15 to 3 or 15 to 1 like he did. Then, you know, then it's not that much fun. But, you know, it kind of, you know, now I'm going to get personal with y'all.

[01:10:09] One of the things I really love about doing foosball tournaments, even being a promoter, even being a tournament director, is I get to meet so many people. Oh, yeah. I love meeting people. I love getting to know people. And because of my faith in God, I love to maybe witness or help people, you know. So there's been so many times, and I'll say this with all sincerity, there's been times in the past three or four years I want to quit. I just want to stop. It's too much.

[01:10:39] It's too much. Yep. I just can't stand it. And then I'll get a phone call at 2 o'clock in the morning. Hey, man, I need some help. Can you pray with me? And I'll do it. Or I have somebody text. Man, I got some issues going on. Will you please, you know, pray for me and help me? And so that right there reminds me of the reason why I love to do foosball so much is just so I can meet other people. And if somebody needs some help, I try to do what I can. I'll point them in the right direction if I can't. But I always try to be a positive note.

[01:11:08] Just like poor Reed. You know, Reed's my buddy. I love this guy. He's so cool. He's so fun. He's the best. But last year, well, back at Hall of Fame, when everything went wrong that could go wrong, he was just beside himself. He felt bad. He was doing all he could. The tournament finally got going. We got it done. That's pretty low for him. You know, that and TKO.

[01:11:37] But, you know, like I said, I love this guy. And what he's doing is very good. And as soon as you get the stuff worked out, it's going to be the best. It already is the best. It's amazing. Yeah. But I called him. I called him the week after. I said, hey, man, don't kick yourself. Everything I'm hearing from everybody is they love what they see. And they know it's going to be awesome. And you, the man, you can do it. And it's come to pass. I mean, it's the best there is. It's great stuff.

[01:12:04] And they're going to keep adding to it. There's going to be more. There's going to be stuff I don't even know coming. Yeah. 100%. And they probably don't need to tell me because it's hard to keep excitement like that in. You know, but I mean, I know they can't tell you. I do keep a lot of stuff. Anything that I can say, don't you say nothing. The only person I might hear about it would be my wife. And that's because I don't keep anything from her. Right. That's how we've been married together 36 years.

[01:12:31] You just don't keep secrets with your spouse if you want to stay together. Not that she cares. She used to love foosball, but now she kind of hates it. Well. Like I'm going to miss a birthday this week because I'm going to Mississippi State. But Mississippi State is very important. Oh, boy. Well, we can celebrate that birthday the week before. That's what I always told them. You know, since when do you always celebrate it on their birthday? You know, it's always on the weekend. So.

[01:12:55] But anyway, I make sure my family know I love them and I'm doing this not only just for myself, but just for the kingdom. You know. And, you know, that's one thing I really love. If you're dedicated to foosball, if you really take this sport seriously, regardless of what your level might be, and you just love it. You've got to have a family support, man. You need it.

[01:13:25] They liked it. And they used to come and watch. But now, whenever we go to tournaments, there would be other wives there. You're not going to stay and watch? She said, I done done my time. All right. And the 90s, she would come with a double stroller and a kid walking. Wow. Three kids. And come to the tournament at Dallas. And they would watch a little bit. And she says, all right, we're going to the mall or, okay, we're going to Bass Pro Shop. We're going to do this. She knows Grapevine probably better than some people that live there.

[01:13:54] I mean, she's done a lot of stuff. And so she has fun doing that kind of stuff now. You know, she loves to explore. And used to, we'd go like two or three days early to a tournament. The whole family would go to Six Flags. And then we'd have fun. Like when I went to the World Series this year, we had my grandkids with me. And they said, we want Papaw to go. So we stayed an extra day just so we could go to Six Flags. And we had a blast. They loved it. I had fun. And it was worth it. You know, I'm curious.

[01:14:22] This comes to mind here when it comes to you and promoting and, of course, running tournaments. Is there anybody, well, in the recent past who has done as many tournaments as you? Well, I really don't know. I know Kristen did a lot of tournaments back in her time. Oh, sure. Her and John did a lot. Yep. A lot, yeah. But, you know, I really hadn't looked at it like that. I really hadn't thought about it. You know, I've been doing a lot.

[01:14:53] I'm for hire. You know, state tournaments will hire me to come. As a matter of fact, I'll be doing Mississippi State. And we lock up Monday. And the truck heads to Ohio. Yeah. I fly out to Ohio Wednesday morning. Wow. So I get one day to go home, wash my clothes. And I get on a plane. I go to Ohio. And I'll be there till the following Monday. Then I come home. Then I got three weeks till Worlds. Yep. So it's going to be real busy. But then after Worlds, I have a long stretch till December.

[01:15:21] One tournament I would like to go to that I keep telling the promoters, my friends, my calls. I keep telling them I'm coming. And I haven't made one yet. It's Thanksgiving, man. It's Thanksgiving, I know. It's so hard to do. North Carolina? Dude, it's two hours from me and I can never go. Yeah. It's the most upsetting thing in the world to me. See, I used to love to do the Black Friday because I didn't shop, but I like to watch people. Yeah. I'm a people person. I like to watch.

[01:15:47] I remember one time, you remember when those little scooters, those little scooters. Like the chassis? Yeah. Remember when that was super huge, okay? They had two pallets full of them. And I just got up on the back of one of the racks over there close to it. And I was just sitting there. And all of a sudden, they unwrapped the plastic. Everybody's just going crazy, just passing them back. And I was just sitting there just shaking my head, watching. And the guy from Walmart that was handling them out, he says, you want it? I said, I want two. He said, okay.

[01:16:16] So I just sat there and watched, was laughing. And when it got a little down, he said, these two are his. And he handed them to me. I'm like, this is sweet. I got to watch all that. And it was just hilarious. But yeah, I liked the Black Friday. That's crazy. It is. Now, I don't have nothing to do with it. Well, I don't think many people do because you can just go online. Yeah, it's a lot different now. I mean, you don't have the excitement like they used to have. I mean, you know, you go to these big stores and you get these little coupons.

[01:16:45] You think he's going to win you a $500 free, but I don't think they ever give that away. I think it's just, just gets you there. You know? No, it, uh, things have changed so dramatically because it really, I mean, 24, seven, seven days a week, 365 days a year. You can go onto, onto the internet and find whatever you want for a lot less money than what you'd normally pay. And somebody's got it someplace, you know? Yeah. You go to T-Mood, you can get them for a penny. Yeah. Yeah.

[01:17:15] I got, I got my last scam done to me about a year ago. It said, you qualify for the penny sale, pick out five items for a penny. So I pick them out and it says, congratulations. Now you just have to spend another $35. Yeah. Whatever. Yeah. And then, and so, and so I click on that item. I click on that item that's 50 something dollars to get it. Cause I'd like to have it. And then all of a sudden it says, you have $35 to go. You have $30 to go. I said, wait a minute. I just bought $50. Only $5 to go.

[01:17:42] And by the time I did, I'm going to be spending about two or 300 bucks just to get my five items free. So I just hit delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete, delete. You ain't getting me. Wow. That's. You know what? That's, there's a lot of pitfalls out there. You got to be careful. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, regardless, I mean, it's, it, Black Fridays are just never going to be the same ever again. Just cause they're not, you know, and that might be a good thing. The way the world's going, you know, we don't. Yeah. Crazies out there, but one thing I know for sure, Mississippi state's definitely going on this weekend.

[01:18:13] I know they having some tropical storms in the Gulf, but it's not going to affect us up in Pearl. Okay. So it's going to be good. The, the, the foosball is going to be fantastic. Um, if, if we outgrow this location, we'll move to a bigger location next year. Cause there's plenty of them around. Yep. Um, but, uh, I know the competition is going to be great. I know we're going to have the tablets. We're going to have the live stream. So I'm just, I'm just all ready.

[01:18:43] I'm ready to get going. Look, I'm ready to start putting some tables together. He's got the tools out and everything. Yeah. Rock and roll. They're going to, they're going to start setting up on Wednesday. We start on Thursday at lunchtime and the stream should be up and going late. You know, maybe Thursday or Friday for sure. Um, and, and like I said, uh, you know, I don't, I don't even think last year we even needed a ref, but maybe once or twice. Good. Everybody pretty much learns it pretty good.

[01:19:12] But, um, I'm, I'm really looking forward to the tablets. One thing that, one thing that people need to get used to about these tablets is you need to go ahead and have some money in your pocket. If you're used to calling refs or used to getting refs called on you, have change in your pocket already because I'm telling the refs now that they go straight to the table and we don't handle it. So the way we used to handle it is I made them give me the money. Yep. And then they could play their match because they got to give me the money. Well, now the refs are doing it at the table and they're not supposed to start playing

[01:19:42] until the refs get paid. It's the only way they can do that is have correct change. So we, we have to do some training on that, but that's going to eventually get there. And I like the way when you need your table worked on it, ask you, do you have a broke pen, a broke man, a messed up rod, a messed up mirror? And that's pretty cool. And, uh, so it's definitely going in the right way. And the question is, did the tablets work? You know, that you asked a while back, I think overall efficiency, it helped. It helped get people there because people did not want to forfeit.

[01:20:12] They did not want to lose the drop our side. Um, it's results in faster too. Yep. It's results in faster immediately. And yeah, the only thing that might speed it up is if you made them start losing games. If you're not there at your first recall, you're doing a game. That'll do it. That does that. No, I don't. No, that's how it used to be. Oh no, it was ball. It was ball inside. That's what it was. You lose side first and then ball. Side first and then the ball. Okay.

[01:20:38] But if you did a game, nobody would leave the ballroom. Here's the real question, Donald. Donald. So you've talked about, uh, there's going to be, you know, some great players there. You've talked about everything, you know, all the software, all the tablets streaming, all that great stuff. And the food. We talked about food. And the food. And the food. And the venue. Yeah. For somebody who's on the fence, who has not said, oh, I'm definitely going. Obviously there's not even rooms right now.

[01:21:07] So you're gonna have to make a decision real quick, find a place to crash. Right. But what would be something that's not been on that list that you would be like, hey, this is why you should come to Mississippi state. Okay. Mississippi state. The most important thing is to see some great foosball. Three years ago. When we had it up there, it might be in four years. We had one of the best matches that we have ever seen.

[01:21:35] Michael Bates and Sullivan Rue played Terry Rue. Yes. Corey Taylor. That was, that was a tear jerker. It went two matches. Yep. I think it was even match ball. Mm-hmm. And then Terry won. There, everybody in the bleachers was crying. They were crying. Yep. He, he was hugging on his daughter. He loved her. She did great. She was, he was crying. She was crying. I mean, I was teared up. I mean, it was just that great of a match.

[01:22:04] We, they all got round of applause for doing it. Yeah. He said, I wanted my daughter to win, but then again, I wanted to win and I wanted Corey to get it. And it was just like, it was a no win situation for me. You know, that's how much, you know, that was a very passionate game. And it could have went either way. And that match was talked about for a year. Oh, easily. Easily. So, so we're known. I remember it vividly. We're known to have good matches like that in Mississippi.

[01:22:32] You know, here's the thing, uh, with, with, uh, ESPN and other, uh, coverage like this knocking at the door soon. Uh, that kind of drama, that kind of story, man, that, that's a, that's a, that's a big sell right there. Big sell. It is. You see this, uh, this, this, this is this kind of thing you don't see in professional sports very often. You know, uh, father playing against a daughter or, uh, or, uh, or a son or whatever the case

[01:23:00] and having it that close and that man, that's, that's drama, right? This is what this is made of. This is why. And just like what Brady playing pro double with his dad and winning. Yeah. Father, son playing. You know, that's, that's just not a lot of that. Yep. It makes for good, good stories. Oh, it's. And like you said, they're knocking at the door. They're, uh, they're curious as, Hey, what's going on in there? There must be something really happening with 800 people expected to show up for world championships

[01:23:28] this year in New Orleans. Um, what do you think? I'm just, um, you know, it's hard to, hard to really predict, but do you think world championships is going to be the biggest ever this year? I think so. There's already people booking the rooms now and, and we heard about people booking the rooms a while back. You know, I think it will be bigger than last year. Okay. And, and what was our number last year? Seven hundred and seven. Yeah. Something like that. Yep. I said, you know, right around seven 30.

[01:23:58] Yeah. I would like to see it break 800, but I would love to see a thousand people. Ooh. I would love to see a thousand. That'd be awesome. That'd be cool. Yeah. And look, you know, I know everybody's heard about the contract with the hotel, right? Ryan could only do a two year contract. Yep. Um, they already had a million dollar contract that they couldn't, did not want to get out of cause they're getting some money. Yep. So that's why we're having to go somewhere else next year. Okay. Okay.

[01:24:28] But if we have a thousand people, I bet you're going to try awful hard to stay in New Orleans, maybe at another hotel. I'm not sure. Hmm. But if I got a thousand people, I don't think I'd want to leave. Yeah. Yeah. Right. Let's ride that puppy until it drops back down to five or 600. Then we'll think about going somewhere. But you know, the thing is, is foosball is getting more exciting and there is some stuff that I can't say that's going to make it even bigger on the horizon. Oh boy.

[01:24:55] All I can say, if you think we're rocking now, oh my goodness, you hadn't seen nothing yet. Ryan told me when he first got started, he wants to make each year better, each year better, each year better. And so far he is delivering on what he said. It's, uh, he was. And I'm not just saying that because I work for him. I'd say, I hear that from other people that don't work for him to just play foosball.

[01:25:22] Well, you know, when, when, uh, he sat down with us, uh, nationals and, uh, episode number 304, I believe it was. And, uh, you know, he, he went on a bit and I think at that moment, he really, really, really wanted to get more into detail about stuff, but he, he held back and I said, but man, I still want the scoop. You know, when you do finally talk about these things, you've, you've been kind of hinting around.

[01:25:49] I definitely want to hear about it and, uh, bring him back and, and, uh, have him reveal. Yeah, definitely. You know, he will definitely want to do that. Okay. Uh, as a matter of fact, a lot of times when me and Ryan talk, I say, Hey bud, I just need five minutes or I'll call him. He says, all right, I don't have a 10 minutes hour and a half later. We say, all right, we really got to go. That's how, that's how enthused and fire up he gets talking about foosball. Yep.

[01:26:17] And you know, I'm the wrong person to talk to about foosball or anything in general, because you know, back when I worked for Mary, she had me doing registration, keeping up with the refs, keeping up with table maintenance, keeping up with recalls, keeping up with, you know, people getting registered and new players entering them in. And I was doing five or six different things. And with Ryan, first time I worked for him, he saw that he goes, no, sir. We're taking this away. We're taking this way.

[01:26:46] He says, all I want you to do is talk. I want you to answer questions. Wow. Give them what they need to know. So now I can literally say, I get paid to run my mouth. And so that, that is right up my alley because you know, if it's going on at this tournament, I'm probably going to know about what I need to tell them. Yeah. The only thing that's hard to predict when people come talk to me sometimes is how late we play in the night.

[01:27:13] Well, I got to look at the charts and used to, we had somebody else doing charts and I have to ask them, they would know I have to wait. So, but now I'm more in tune with what we're doing with that. Cause I'm watching it and kind of keeping it going. And, but the term is going to run itself. So I'll know a little bit more about what's going on. Um, and so I can give a little better answers now, but when it comes to the schedule, I can tell you what you need to know when it comes to how long you got to wait.

[01:27:40] I can almost tell you close, but I'm never going to tell everybody you're next. Cause we never, you know, you don't, you just, I can say you're next. And then somebody that's playing with somebody jumps on the table. I can't predict that kind of stuff. Right. You know, right, right, right. But if it's, if it's flight format, we can predict that stuff. Cause that's what the top priority is. And of course, as pecking order opens, going to take priority over pro pro over expert expert over amateur amateur, amateur over rookie and rookie over beginner.

[01:28:10] That's just the way it is. But again, Ryan's goal, he told me is never to have to wait over 40 minutes to play a match. I get it. Now you might be, you might be playing different events back to back. So you're not going to get a break. And a lot of people like breaks where you can't have your cake and eat it too. You're going to wait a while so you can go eat. Are you going to play until it's done? How about playing and then, then worrying about that stuff? Yeah. Yeah. You know, I always try to eat before I go or I have some snacks to snack on, you know,

[01:28:39] but with me working, I don't never get to leave up there. And I tell you what I can, and I'm not, and I just want everybody to know, and y'all know who you are. I really appreciate a lot of the people that come to these tournaments because they realize sometimes I can't get out of that seat and they bring me food. They bring me, you know, an icy, my Alabama and Georgia people bring me ice. They love me. And I always tell them whenever somebody brings me a Coke icy, uh, I say, now you're my favorite

[01:29:09] player from Alabama or you're my favorite player from Georgia, you know? So that's always been a funny thing between me and Jimmy Watkins and now seeing the heads getting into it. Sometimes you need an icy, you know, so they know I like Coke icies. So I see. What exactly is an icy? It's like a frozen. Yeah. A frozen drink. Oh, I always see. Oh, got it. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. And I had, uh, let's see, you know, I had some people go to Benny Han, Han, Han, and they would always bring me some of their leftovers.

[01:29:37] I think, uh, that's always been one of them. My buddy over in Florida, I don't know if I need to say his name or people might get mad that he's doing that for me and nobody else, but, but he knows who he is. And then, uh, I had, oh, at, uh, at Nashville, somebody brought me a sandwich or maybe that was Vegas. But anyway, they, they hook me up now and I just want them to know, I really appreciate them doing that for me because, because it helps me when I'm stuck there all day, you know, cause I don't have time to go back to room and, and I think the biggest complaint

[01:30:06] from everybody, it was kind of funny when Ryan asked about the hotel over there, it got kind of quiet, but I think, you know, he said, how many of y'all like the venue? Chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp. There wasn't a whole lot of talking and it, and it wasn't, it wasn't really so much the venue other than the hotel was over here and you had to walk a mile length to get to the next hallway, which has those, that's, you know, they need to have those in both hallways. Moving, moving sidewalks, basically.

[01:30:36] Moving sidewalks. They need to have both of them. But as far as, you know, when I go to play foosball, that's what I go for. I could care less what's outside the door of the hotel because I didn't come for that. I come for foosball. So as far as being in the middle of a cornfield, I made jokes the whole weekend. I was saying, do you ever watch, you ever watch Children of the Corn? Let's go watch that movie and take a walk around outside tonight. Right. See how you feel. No, it's, it's, it was pretty amazing though, because we were there the whole time and we're

[01:31:05] right next to the river and there's flood warnings all over the place at, at that whole weekend, all weekend. Yeah. Like when is the, when is the water coming in? That's what I want to know. You know? Well, they had it downstream from us. Yes. Yeah. And it was some of the, the, the flash flooding is from the little bitty rivers going to the big river. The big river was up. You can see that. Oh, sure. Mainly some, maybe some little ones. And if you saw them cornfields coming in, a lot of that was underwater. No doubt. Yeah. And patches.

[01:31:34] That's why they were not as big as the other ones. I was wondering about the Uber ride on Monday, whether or not they were going to be able to get to me. You know, it's like, yeah. And it was 45 minutes. It's the Ohio river, man. You don't know what you're going to get. Well, plus they are working on the interstate there inside of, uh, and so that's over with now. So next year the traffic won't be as bad because you'll have different roads you can take. Right. Right. Yeah. I-65 was closed. Man. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait.

[01:32:03] Let me just clarify something here. Next year? If they have it. If, if they have it in Louisville. He'd have it. He don't know. He don't have it contracted. I just said, if they, I should have said, if they have it there. Like, wait a minute. Getting a scoop. Next year, huh? No, no, no, no. Next year? Yeah. I don't know. I don't, yeah. I definitely don't know about that. Ryan. If I, if I go to it. Hey, bro. If he has it there next year, I promise you I'm renting a scooter. There you go. Oh, yeah.

[01:32:33] They've got them there in the lobby. Yeah. Definitely. I'm going to pull up right beside the table too. Do you know what they told me at cost? Well, they told me 150 a day. I said, you are high. Come on. That's the, I think she was just pulling my leg. Yeah. They had about. Best deal ever. Do you know, not 150 a day because at, at, at, uh, at Vegas, you can rent them for 250 a week. Right. Yeah. Those are. Or 175. Yeah. For a whole week.

[01:32:59] But you know, they had them in the lobby, but if you go downstairs from the lobby at the hotel, they had about 20 of them all in them corners all plugged in. Did they really? I told Mark, I said, if I was to unplug this and go riding around, they wouldn't know a thing. I don't remember if I saw keys in them though. There were cameras everywhere, but. Can you imagine having Don being hauled away in cups because he's riding a scooter? It's like. Felony. Maybe they've got one of the, you know, a pursuit vehicle with, with the flashing lights on it, chasing you down the hallway. You know?

[01:33:29] Look, they're starting to love. They're starting to love that, man. I'll tell you what. Uh, Todd Lafredo, Darren Bone. Oh yeah. Over at Vegas. They were racing. They were going around corners. Uh, Todd even told, uh, let's see at this last tournament, Joe Rhodes was working and his dad was there with him. Okay. Kent Rhodes. And he, he got one. He got one. And, uh, Randall Stelly, he had one. And, uh, and Kent. He said, man, this thing's a get up and go. And, uh, I said, well, I'll tell Todd, you want to race? He said, yeah, I'll give him a race.

[01:33:59] When I talked to Todd about it, he said, tell him not to go fast. Cause we go around the corner. It will kind of turn over on you to go too fast. So Todd and Darren were racing them things in Vegas. That's hilarious. It was, it was, it was very funny. I think that that's a new, a new feature, you know, for, for, for people who just, you know, they're done playing. Let's, uh, let's get it going. Come on. Let's do some drag racing. Let's set up a track. Well, two years, two years at Vegas, I pulled a hamstring for, I went and my back of my leg was purple and blue.

[01:34:28] And I told my wife, I'm going to rent me a scooter. Then she gave me a guilt trip. You're going to get a scooter and you ain't going to ever walk anymore. So I decided not to rent one and it was tough walking, but I did it. I didn't get back on a scooter. I didn't get on that scooter. But it's, you know, I don't mind walking. It's just, you got 10 minutes, you got to hurry up and get back. That's kind of tough. It is hard. It is definitely, definitely difficult. Challenging. No, I mean, if you're going to do it in a casino, you're going to, I mean, it's a, it's a great venue.

[01:34:55] Obviously, uh, the, the casino in Southern Indiana was very good because of the room. The room was awesome. The room was great. But the food, all the food was in the damn casino. So, and it was hard to, to predict when they're actually open. And yeah, you know, that was crazy. Yeah. That was crazy. The pizza was great, but it's like, they only open on Friday from six to 11. Yep. That's Saturday was, you know, four to whatever. And then Sunday was one to eight or something like that.

[01:35:25] It was crazy. Yeah. They could have made a lot more money. So yeah, you're right. There was a lot of people Ubering. And now it was exactly eight miles back to where that bridge is. Well, right. There was a waffle house and there was a egg place. And then you go another mile or two, you start getting into some fast food places. So it wasn't that bad, but you can't leave it playing because you're going to be gone a while. Oh, of course. But me and Mark, we went to Walmart on the way there and also Walmart sells to them. So they do bring it out.

[01:35:55] So we had sandwich meat. We had food. We had all kinds of stuff. So we was good. But unfortunately, I was working. So Mark had to make several visits back and forth. It was wearing him out. He would call me. Do you need anything? I said, no, I think I'm good. He said, well, good. I'm tired. But let me tell you a funny story about him. And I know we're telling stories. It's not really about foosball sometimes. But have you ever heard of those Chesters? That's popcorn flavor. The puff?

[01:36:25] Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. You never guess who turned me on to that. I was at a tournament. And it was Shelly Langley. She said, have you seen Stacy yet? I said, no. Well, she's bringing me some popcorn. I said, hmm. So when she finally came in there, she showed them to me. I said, oh, that looks neat. She said, here, have one. Oh, wow. Oh, wow. So now I bought a bag on the way up here.

[01:36:55] They're in the room. So I said, Mark, you ever had these before? He said, yeah, I like the cheese ones. I said, have you ever had the popcorn? He said, no. So I opened it up and gave him one. He goes, man, that's good. I said, it sure is. So I folded up and left it. Four days have gone by. And I haven't asked for anything. So he finally calls me Saturday evening. He said, hey, man, anything? I said, you know, I would like those Chester popcorn. He said, anything but that.

[01:37:25] Whoops. Anything but that. Yeah. I said, no, no, I really, really think I want that. He goes, all right. So he brings it. There's only a few of them in the bag. So on the way back home, he stopped and bought two or three bags. He said, I got to always have these. Well, we've just done a sponsorship for Chester popcorn. There you go. Hey. You know, that's something else too.

[01:37:55] You know, I really like the way that Ryan is really getting people involved, you know, as far as sponsors. And I feel like with all this going to the next level, each year is the next level. That's probably going to start getting even bigger and bigger. Wow. Wow. Well, we've. I mean, who would think it, right?

[01:38:15] Oh, well, we've had this conversation more than once recently about the fact that in a year or two or three, with all the sponsorships involved, you know, you could become a master player and actually make a living playing foosball.

[01:38:30] Well, you know, that was a huge step this year about doing the top 10 and then actually, you know, sponsoring them and getting a shirt and then having the spots on the shirts auction off that actually 100% of that money went to the players. There you go. There you go. I figured at least cost them the shirt, but he said, no, that's my sponsor shield, you know, to them. So that really worked out to them players good. You know, they starting to get some of the recognition they deserve, you know, and they deserve it.

[01:39:00] You know, it's something to shoot for. I bet the top players start shooting for it this year, you know, and making sure they're in the top 10 or close to it. And you're going to see a whole lot more interest in getting better because, hey, look at the benefits. Once you get to that level, it's worth all that extra effort and time. And I've even talked to some of the people. I mean, I was able to get on two jerseys. Nice. And we put, uh, Mark and myself, we put the hammer and Batman logo on there for our tournaments for the shirt.

[01:39:29] And, uh, you know, I hear people say, yeah, I got to buy someone. So I bought the back. I got it for like 800 bucks, man, or 500 bucks, you know? And is that a good deal? And I'll say, yes, that was a great deal, man. Your name's going to be out there on live stream. And, you know, it's, it's really good. You know, I see that getting bigger too. You know, I tried for a couple of spots in different shirts and I got up bid every time. Yeah. So we ended up getting two, we had four, but we lost two of them right at the last minute, but we was able to hold on to two. Okay.

[01:39:59] You know, it was a lot of fun. Yeah. Now, North Carolina, they got on about everybody. And they, what they did is my friends over there in McCall's, they, they had all the players over there, put all their money together. And I think they got on just about every jersey, but Tony's. Did they really? Wow. Tony, Tony was exclusive Valero. Oh, yeah. He bought every one of them. Yeah. So, yeah. I don't think he had got outbid in any way. Right. Right. But that's, that's what he deserves. I think, I think that was pre done anyway.

[01:40:29] It was, it was. Yeah. Well, that's kind of like in his deal. He has, you know, he sponsored through him. So, but that's really cool. That was really neat. Him doing that. You know, I like it. Yeah. You know, and everything he's doing does trick it down to the state promoters. As a matter of fact, I asked Ryan, um, several months back to send me the information on how the tour does their hall of fame. Hmm.

[01:40:58] A lot of the states are doing hall of fames. We've been doing one since 2015. Okay. And a lot of states are doing it. A lot of states are starting it. And, um, so I had him send me the regulations and I read it. And on tour, you, it's pretty strict. You have to be pretty up there to get on that one. Yeah. Either as a player or promoter. As a matter of fact, I do have a, uh, you know, a couple world titles.

[01:41:26] So, but it says open doubles world titles. And I don't have that R single. So that kind of limbs it, but that's not the only reason. There's other reasons you can get in there. Mine would probably be promoter for promoting foosball. So that one, I'd probably have a way to get in there, but state tournaments. You can't, you know, what I ended up doing is I took his information and I guess you could say I dumbed it down to a state level.

[01:41:54] It's where you got to have state titles, regional titles, or, you know, anything above its plus. Do something for your local player scene. Run tournaments for your local scene. You know, helping local players. So I got all these categories now that me and Mark looked at. We made it to where these people would do that to make it for state level. So we put it toward Mississippi this year. We're doing it toward, for Louisiana this year. Okay.

[01:42:19] And, and I think Ryan said, if, you know, if it, if it seems good, that would be something that all the state levels could do. That way you don't put on one or two people to try to choose. When you do a hall of fame, your hall of fame members are the ones that vote on the hall of fame inductees. People, people nominate them or people write bios and sends it in to the committees and then they vote.

[01:42:46] That's, that's really the only best way to do it because it's not one person picking everything or two people picking thing. It's everybody that's in the hall of fame and they don't, you know, they want to keep it to where you meet your qualifications that you're supposed to. And there's an age requirement, you know, I think it's 40. And, uh, you know, so they do a lot of stuff like that, uh, that you got to reach.

[01:43:10] And so, like I said, we do on a state level and I think it's going to be available for any state that does the hall of fames. If they want a copy of it or take a look at it, we'll have it available for them. That way it takes the heat off of thinking it's a dictatorship of who goes in there and our buddy, buddy system. You know, it's, it's who actually meets the standards and gets voted on. A set of criteria. That makes a whole lot of sense. Yeah. And it's, and I got it on a spreadsheet.

[01:43:37] So there's no, I mean, if anybody ever wants to see how we did it, like if somebody said, how did they get in? I said, well, I can show you the spreadsheet, you know? So yeah, good. So it's there to see who got voted on and who did it and all that kind of stuff. So, so this, just to make things easy. Yeah. And I'm curious too. I mean, I know that this next year will, will tell the tale, but what, what are you hearing generally about the United Foosball League? What, what are your, what are your thoughts?

[01:44:05] When you call United Foosball League, you talking about the league play that they're doing? Yeah. They're right. Yep. Ryan's going to start doing them. Yep. Um, well, I know he was, he was trying to get it done for this year, but he knew quick. He's not, he's not dumb. He was, he knew how much it was going to take and he knew they was focusing on getting the core software ready. Yep. And get it going.

[01:44:29] And so now that that's pretty much taken care of, now it's going to start to know, you know, he wasn't going to do another North America cup. Well, he said real quick, we need to do this because we're not going to have it ready. And you know, it's hard to say this too. Last year we had 16 teams. Yes. This year we had 18. Was it 18? 18 teams. That is unheard of. It was a blast.

[01:44:53] And look, with that kind of push to get these teams in here for this, that's what league is all about. Yeah. Having teams like that. So it's going to feed off each other. And he didn't say, you know, I don't guess I'm letting the cat out of bag, but he kind of did say something and he said it out loud where more people could have heard it than just me. But he said, he's not necessarily stopping the North America cup or whatever.

[01:45:22] He's just wanting to start the leagues. He said, we might could move, if there's still a big interest in it, we might can move that to another tour. Hmm. You know. I would like to see that, you know, one of the majors, you know, where he can. Yeah. That's why he said, or create another major, you know, or just whatever. He said, you know, because when you start getting these leagues, that's going to be a lot of fun stuff. And then, you know, so that's, and he's going to start having league tournaments at the tour stops, you know. There you go.

[01:45:51] So, but, you know, he said that could always be, you know, move to another time, you know, or another tour, another major, whatever, you know, for North America. Cause you know, the bottom line is it does help kids. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh, a hundred percent. Yep. That's good. We had two, two youngsters on our, on our New York state team and they had a blast. They had so much fun. That's cool. And, you know, they're, they're, it was their first experience at a tour stop. Really? Oh yeah.

[01:46:20] And they're both, both of them are 12, yeah, 12 years of age and, and they're going back again. You know, they couldn't wait. That's cool. Yeah. Couldn't wait to go back. That's cool. So. Well, look, I want to talk to you about something else. Can we talk about something else? Well, okay. Maybe. How much time we got left? How much time we got left? Uh, we're over by 45 minutes. Yeah. So. Let's talk about, let's talk about something. All right. Do it. Did y'all watch any soccer? Oh, I watched the world cup to um, 10th degree.

[01:46:50] Yeah, I did too. And, uh, I used to play soccer when I was a kid and, um, back in the seventies, the seventies. We had a, we had a team at the YMCA. We won state. Did you? Two years in a row. Um, wish I could find the metal I got back then is on a little leather strap with a little gold metal. But anyway, I like soccer. It's fun.

[01:47:17] I got to learn a lot of the rules, but when I got down to the final 32, those stadiums were packed like a Superbowl. Hmm. Mm-hmm. I mean, it just packed. I watched the, I watched the whole finals today. It was unbelievable. Halftime show. It was unbelievable. Yeah. It made the football Superbowl. A little light crap. And they even had, they even had the Muppets on there. And that was hilarious.

[01:48:06] The Muppets? Bip, baby. That's what I was waiting for. But no, it was a slow ballard and it was good. I mean, it was good. He crushed it. But he had Madonna starting it off. They had Shakira, is that her name? Yeah. In there. They had the BT boys from Korea in there. Huh. They had, I don't know who the rapper was singing with the girl. But anyway, she was in there. And they might have one other person, but it was like killing it.

[01:48:34] I mean, it was nonstop. Nice. It was good. And that was, that was a good halftime show. I'm like, wow, they just showed up football. Mm-hmm. It was just bad. But anyway. It's about time. I mean, I mean, soccer is, is not like it's brand new to the States. I mean, I got, I grew up in a, my hometown was all soccer. That's what it was all about, man. I mean. Well, you know, everybody at them games was from other countries. They wasn't from here. They, they come over and drove.

[01:49:02] Now there were some locals in there, but that just shows how popular that is. Mm-hmm. Well, you know, we have something that mimics soccer. It's called table soccer. And look, and I was talking to Mark today about it. He watched the last 15 minutes and he was talking about how cool it was. And he brought up the thing about, yeah, that guy got a yellow card. They got a red card. They was playing short. And he says, I wonder if we could use that card system in foosball. Ooh.

[01:49:30] I said, you know, you got a point. A digital card. No, I mean just a card. Yeah. Just give it. If anybody gets an argument with a ref or a staff member or the tournament director, you get a yellow card. Mm-hmm. Two yellow cards and you. Two yellow cards. You're going to, you know, you're, you're on thin ice. If you mess up again, you get a red card and you're out of the tournament.

[01:49:57] It'd be, it'd be better in match because that would be great television, by the way. Yes, it would. Yeah. As a commentator, that would be amazing. That is a really good idea. Really good idea. A ref pulls out a yellow card for something like egregious. Right? Like, that would be pretty insane. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. One player comes to mind that would probably get his fair share.

[01:50:27] And I don't mean this in a bad way to the guy because he's a great foosball player. He played goalie for Ryan for so long, you know, and other players. But boy, he used to mess with people on the other side of the table. I bet Bobby Diaz would get a ton of red and yellow cards put on him. Well, that would be. We can think of a few. That was part of the mind game. That was part of the mind game. I mean, that's it. Johnny Horton. In your head. Oh, yeah. Johnny Horton would have some red cards put on him, you know.

[01:50:56] It would be funny to have something like that. Oh. It really would be. That would be just hilarious. This is. I haven't told Ryan is, but that would be funny. That would be food for thought, really. Food for thought. No, that's brilliant. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That way people would start acting more professional. Yeah. And by the way, I meant to ask you guys, did you see the advertisement for World Cup? I've forgotten the sponsor, but they were sponsoring the World Cup, and they showed foosball in their promo ads. I did see that. I went, what?

[01:51:26] Oh, look at that. And it was a national ad campaign. I want to say something about that. Mary Moore told me two years ago when I said, hey, Mary, they're going to have the World Cup soccer here in 2026. She said somebody needs to jump on that. Yeah. So I mentioned it in our meetings. Okay. And nobody really knew how to take the reins of that.

[01:51:53] But I said, we just need a table inside one of those locations with the QR code where they can click on it and read all about the tour. No, no, I'm just saying. I'm just saying that would be good. Mm-hmm. Well, Brandon Munoz is in New York. He went to that game. Yep. But he took some pictures earlier that week of a, it looked like a Roberto Sport or Garlando table already there. Interesting. And so they're playing it. And see, we missed the boat. It would have been great to have Tornado there.

[01:52:23] But I guess y'all saw the world's record of the longest foosball table. Yes. 525 feet. Yeah. So now I know why it's hard to get parts. No, I'm just kidding. That was a joke. That was a joke. Steve Murray, if you're watching this, it was a joke. Okay. Didn't mean that. You just did one of these. Yeah. Trey, I love you. That was just a joke. That was just a joke.

[01:52:47] But anyway, no, that's a, that they said, was it really say 260 players per side? I can go look. So 525 feet in length. So that's, that's, that's the longest in, in, on record, right? Longest foosball table on record. 525 feet. I think it said 260 players. Per side. And then they said if they played a game, it would take four weeks to finish a game. Yeah. I believe that. There's not much scoring going on. Yeah. Generally speaking.

[01:53:16] And, um, although maybe somebody, uh, you know, like Tony could get, uh, halfway down the table. Who knows? Yeah. I think areas would, aerials would be popular if they could stay on the table. That way. Oh, that's amazing. Yeah. No question. Wow. Now it's. But your rods aren't close enough to get do that though. So I have to ask you because the topic is on the table now, pardon the pun. Um, where are you getting your balls? Dead silence.

[01:53:47] Still tornado. Pin drop. I was looking to see if I was looking to see if I have a, hold on. It's still tornado. There it is. Oh my gosh. That's hilarious. Uh, we are getting our balls from Ryan who buys them from tornado. Okay. And Steve Murray has personally made that a project of his to find out why they're not lasting as long.

[01:54:16] And he's actually had them change the saw paper, turn them on as long, but he actually found out that they did. The people supplying the ball did make one minor change on some of the stuff they was using to make it. And that was what the problem is. He still worked. They're still working on it. And they think they, they're not ever going to, I, and I'm not, I can't speak for tornado and I can't speak for, for Steve, but they're doing it to where they last. They're getting better. Each tournament is getting better. Yep. They are.

[01:54:46] Yeah. They're getting a lot better. So they are working on it and that's good to know, you know, cause at one time didn't know whether or not, but they was, but you know, you don't, you don't let, I guess people know you're working on something to get, get us, get a solution. Right. Right. Because, you know, you don't want to get people's hopes up and then, oh, they suck or whatever, but they are getting better. Um, can they get better? Yes. And I think they will. Okay.

[01:55:12] You know, uh, but we get, we get them from them and I think they're spending more time for the tournament balls tumbling a little longer. Oh God. It helps them out more. Yeah. But, uh, yeah. So, so that's where I'm getting them. I'm getting them from Ryan and he's getting them from tornado and Steve is making sure that those bats that goes on tour are, are as close to as, as best as they can get them. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. So that's, that, that's my story and I'm sticking to it. Hey.

[01:55:41] I will never tell a lie. No, I'm just saying that, that's, that's, you know, that's for real. That's a for real thing. And, uh, so. No, I appreciate, I appreciate your candor on that. I know it's, it's a, it's a sore subject no matter what. Uh, you know, we're faced with a situation where, you know, foosball has taken off. I mean, it's, it's, in fact, it's not just taken off, it's in flight. And, and so we just need some things to catch up. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of things.

[01:56:10] I mean, you know, as, as, as we have stuff made by humans, you're going to have some imperfections like in the foosball table. Sure. If somebody has a bad day at work and they don't put the glue level all under the formica, you might have a dead spot. I don't know. Maybe, maybe not. Or they get built and they're out on the back dock and the sun melts it. I mean, I'm just throwing so, I don't know, you know, things can happen, you know, but

[01:56:36] overall, even on a tornado table's worst day, it's still probably the best table there is on the floor. Oh, no question. No question. No, hands down. Yeah. Right now. Yeah. So, uh, you know, um, well, I'm just, I'm just saying, you know, um, of course, nobody wants, nobody wants, nobody wants to put out a crappy table. Right. Right. Right. And well, here's the thing we, and again, we're beating a dead horse here, but when it

[01:57:05] comes to any major sport, any major professional level sport, the equipment has to be of a certain standard. That's right. Yeah. You know, and, and tornadoes always had the pride of being the best on the market. And the only way to keep that level is to make sure it is. Yep. And I don't think anybody wants their product to fall. No. You know, so, you know, with that being said, I hope they are doing everything they can to,

[01:57:31] you know, make sure the rides are better and make sure the balls stay up standard. And, and maybe they might find a new solution or something of a makeup of a, I don't know. I don't know. But like I said, as long as the balls are getting better, as long as they're getting better, that's fine. Yeah. Yeah. But I tell you what, those, some of those balls that did come out that were real slick. It made me not want to play just because, you know, they bounce off your men. It's hard to catch them.

[01:57:57] But here lately, the last, I mean, I just played this past Sarah tonight and, and, and we had some balls that they just got and, and they were playing good for me. So I'm okay. So Nationals was solid. They weren't perfect. They were better than tour kickoff. Definitely. I'll take that all day. Definitely. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And they, and they, and they know, I mean, tornado, they're not, they're not dumb people there. They know they got to keep their, their stuff up, you know, and just stay on top of the

[01:58:23] game, you know, but, but I think, I think the thing is, is that as, as promoters and as, um, just as promoters, we get the heat from everybody. They tell us our balls suck. They tell us our tables suck. And of course, well, we didn't make it. But it's kind of hard because we're the buffer. We're the one that gets it. But yeah. Yeah. Tornado is working on it.

[01:58:53] I know that personally, cause, cause I get told, you know, by Steve that, you know, and it's showing on the balls, they are getting better. Is there another ball that could be better? Well, bites doing some balls that are pretty good. So, and he's taking, but, but see the, the balls he's doing are the older balls. Right. He's refurbing. Yeah. I don't know if refurbing those balls that are slick would get any better. I mean, it's not, it's not any one person's fault. It's just, you know, the makeup.

[01:59:23] It depends, right? It depends upon what the actual substance of the ball is. Is it a different makeup? Is it different chemical makeup from the previous balls? I mean, or is it the same at just not being treated the same way? Who knows? Cause we're getting bubbles in them. Yeah. Yeah. Problems. Well, you know what? I talked to the owner of Tornado about the balls and he said, they've always had bubbles in them. Really?

[01:59:49] John Zoller said he had some balls he cut in half back in the nineties and they had bubbles in them. Oh, that's not, that's not something. Yeah. Okay. I did. I didn't know that either. I didn't know that. That's awesome. I didn't know that either. That's what Zoller told me. That makes me feel better. But, but the holes are always kind of in the middle. Now, if you got a hole over to the side, that's going to make it real funny. And every now and then we might get one that rolls funny and that's probably what it is. But as a, but as a whole, they've always had holes in the balls. Our little air pockets.

[02:00:19] Well, I guess that makes sense. You know, given, given the process, the injection molding or whatever they use, uh, that's a result thereof. And that's fine. As long as it doesn't affect the performance, you know, as long as it's, uh, the ball still, still, uh, true. Um, yeah. So a little side note, I always try to look at the good and everything and everybody. And that's why I say they're, they're trying to work on it. I would hate to, you know, Oh no, we're not here to say anything good about anybody.

[02:00:48] Cause I know they want to have, they want to strive to keep having the number one table. Of course. And the number one, everything just like, you know, you got the number one radio show for foosball and you want to keep it that way. It's like the only one, but that's okay. Well, I, I, I, no, you're not the only one. Somebody else does it, don't they? Um, there is maybe one in Europe. I think, uh, there was, um, there was actually a, um, God, I forgot what it's called now. Um, hmm.

[02:01:16] Well, they had, I remember they had two of them that was going around there and I don't think they do it anymore. Yeah. So I mean, I'm just saying we have commentators, we have, you know, there's all different kind of tastes, but you know, as long as you're working to make it better, that's, that's all you can ask for. Oh, absolutely. And you know, if you can't find it, then you start doing something about it and trying to find your own solution. You know, I think we all want it to be better. Right. I think there's no question about that. And, uh, well, you gotta know foosball players are picky. Of course. Of course. We're the worst. We're the worst human beings on planet earth.

[02:01:46] There's a, somebody killed a fly. Get that blood off the top of that table. Yeah. It's a. Somebody left their paper wraps to their wraps on the floor. Can you get that on? You know, it's, it's, we have to get it down to the point where nobody can use an excuse like, ah, the balls suck. And that's why I lost. You know, we got it. The one thing that, okay, let's say the balls suck. They're horrible. Both teams play on them. Yeah. Everybody's got to deal with the same conditions. People are still winning.

[02:02:14] Who, whoever adapts the best is going to win. Yep. But should we have to do that? No. But until there's a solution, that's what you have to do. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. You know. Be aware. I mean, I've got two tables right here, right? I can tell you they play very different. They're both tornado. They're different years. Ah. But they play very different. And that's the reason I keep two. Mm-hmm. Is because I will jump from one to the other just because I know how different they are.

[02:02:44] One's got a really slick surface. One's got a very tacky surface. One, the ball, like, flies off the guy. The other guys feel a little bit more dead. You have to learn to adapt. That is the name of foosball. Mm-hmm. Like, you have to adapt to every table you get on. If you want to be elite in this game, you have to learn to adapt to the conditions that you're playing on. I mean, every place you go. I mean, I've played in Chicago. I've played in Ohio. I've played here in Tennessee. I've come down. I mean, we've played across the country at locals. You know what I mean? Mm-hmm. Every place you go, the tables play a little different.

[02:03:14] And that's not just because they're, you know, different models of the tornado table. It's just the conditions they're in. Yeah. The stuff that people are using to clean them. Humidity. Yeah. There's all sorts of reasons for it. Yeah. Yeah. You know? Like, in Chicago, everybody had cold hands because it was so darn cold. You couldn't do anything anyway. You couldn't feel the ball. So, like, every place is a little different. So, you have to learn to adapt to those conditions. I mean, it's the only way. Yeah. Yeah. Chase has played everywhere but Mississippi. Every place but Mississippi. Is that true? Oh, he just got you, man.

[02:03:44] He just got you. I'm trying to think if that's true or not. He just owned you. It probably is. It is true. No, it is true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Only because... I've played in Louisiana twice. But I went to Louisiana State down there last year. So, I went to essentially one of your tournaments. That's okay. I understand. I mean, that counts, sort of. Yeah. Maybe. If you went to Louisiana State, that's good enough for me. Yeah, right? That counts. Yeah, because, see, me and Mark run Mississippi together. Yeah, and you guys run Louisiana together. And we also run Louisiana together. Yeah. It counts.

[02:04:14] I was supporting you. I came down and supported you. I appreciate it. And we'll see you again in December. Mm-hmm. Probably not. Oh, man. Man, if I had a mute button, I'd be a few real quick right now. I want to go, right? I know. I've got three kids, a wife, and a job where I work 50 hours a week. I'm a busy dude. I understand. So, I can only get out to so many. And I've chosen that I'm going to go to three majors a year.

[02:04:44] Like, that is my goal. That's good. I want to go to tour kickoff, nationals, and worlds. Like, those to me are the three big tournaments. I hate Vegas. I've always hated Vegas with a passion. Not the tournament. I just hate the all concept of Vegas. And I just don't like it. So, too many flashing lights. I get distracted easily. Well, you walk through a casino, it's like being in a cartoon, for God's sake. It's so bizarre. So weird. And I get lost so easy in those hotels. I'm like, what happened?

[02:05:12] Well, I don't gamble, so casinos don't matter to me. That's the thing. Like, I want nothing to do with it. But I don't like paying high prices for food. Exactly. That's why I get Walmart to deliver. And I'm set. I'm set. You've got to have a survival guide. Survival guide to classic. That's what we need to do. That's what we need to have a video about is how to survive a foosball tournament. There you go. The right way. Done. Like, how do you do this on the cheap? You bring a cooler. You bring ice. You get a whole bunch of food. Here's the checklist.

[02:05:41] Like, you get the sandwiches. Okay. Look. But here's what we need. Anybody listening to this radio show, I need a sponsor. Okay. That will sponsor us in a survival guide. Okay. Yeah. We'll show them the cheap way by going to Walmart. Mm-hmm. Go down through the lobby and pick up forks and two picks and stuff from the counters and cups and stuff. Napkins. Yeah. And even like at the casino over in Indiana, we can get little cups and put mustard and mayonnaise in them and take them to the room.

[02:06:11] Okay. Now, that's one way. All you have to do is buy a sandwich, meat, and bread, and some chips. You're good. You're good. And then the sponsor can save money. Then the sponsor will show the expensive way. We'll eat at Gordon Ramsay each night. And, you know. Did you go there? Did you go to Gordon Ramsay? I did. You did? I did. Okay. Now, I didn't know anybody who went there. So, I want to know, what was the food like at Gordon Ramsay's? Oh, my goodness. Really? That's good. I got the pork chop dinner. Okay.

[02:06:39] It was pork chop, and I got roasted asparagus.

[02:07:11] Oh. I don't know what the name of it is. And then Mary Moore went with us, too, and she had a steak. She did have a steak. Okay. Yeah. It was good, too. Now, see, I don't know if you can see this pork chop, but that's two pork chops. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Look at that. Looks amazing. Food photography. What would do that? Oh, look at that. I don't know if you can see that. Yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. We can see that. Yes. Oh, man. I love asparagus. It was good.

[02:07:40] Man, I tell you what, it was good. Yeah. No, it's... I was thinking, because it looks so... Like, you had to get dressed or something to go into that place. They would have kicked me out. Yeah, me, too. That's when Miriam caught me asleep at 5 o'clock in the morning. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. Ha! But, yeah, it was... Look, that whole meal was like $400. Oh, yeah. All day. No kidding. No kidding. It's $100 a plate all day in there. Oh, sure. All right. But the show was nice. And look, Mark...

[02:08:08] Something was not the same on Mark's plate. And he was asking if they did it different from the one at Hell's Kitchen. And so, they got the chef to come out there and talk to us. And I told the waiter, please, I'll pay you. Make him yell at Mark. Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. That's funny. He wouldn't do it. F-bums at all? He'd just come out here and talk to them. Yeah, he did. He didn't yell at him.

[02:08:35] But he'd come out there and he just asked if it was supposed to be the same. And they said, it should. And he was saying, well, mine looks more like porridge than it does the lobster tail whatever. And he said, well, yeah. You know, but, you know, still $400 for all of it. Ooh. Regardless. Okay. But it was good. But it was good. Yeah, it was good. Yeah. Yeah. It was funny though. Mark's hilarious. It was, it was the only. People, Mary used to tell us that me and him ought to do.

[02:09:06] It was the only real sit down place in the, in, in the casino. It was. Now he did find another place over there, but it was only open once or twice. And it was where you get the bowls. Oh, I had the noodles. It was a noodle place. Yeah. I had the noodles. I tried that. That was actually pretty good. Um, yeah. He liked it. He could wait for it to open up and the pizza always had a line before they opened up. Yes. Pizza was. But I had a, I had a Philly cheese over there and it was pretty good. Yeah.

[02:09:34] See, I try not to, uh, eat pizza in, in places other than New York state, plain and simple. Just, uh, first of all, you're not wrong. Okay. The pizza there on a good day is like a five, seven. Oh, gotcha. Where we were. Okay. All right. So, and I'm a pizza snob. Mm-hmm. Okay. New York pizza. Let me tell you about a pizza. Let me tell you about a pizza. First of all. I got some good friends of mine from Georgia. His name is Len Deese.

[02:10:04] Good buddy of mine. Okay. They own a, they own a, they own a, they own a Nancy's pizza. Oh yeah. Okay. Okay. Which is a Chicago based pizza. Mm-hmm. That is the best pizza I've ever had in my life. It's a seven, two. A seven, two. There you go. It's a seven, two. He's got it. He's already got it rated, man. He can't. What is a seven, two? Out of 10. Out of 10. Seven, two out of 10. It's a seven, two. Seven, two. Well, that's better than a five.

[02:10:33] I think it's more like a, a solid nine. Not even the ballpark of a nine. I don't even think there's a 10. Don, have you had pizza in New York city? I just got to ask you. First of all, no, he hasn't. Okay. I can tell you right now. He doesn't know what he's talking about. And in the world of Chicago pizza, just to be clear, Nancy's is at the bottom of the list of Chicago pizzas. Okay. There's Giordano's. There's Lou Malinati's.

[02:11:00] Like that's, that's the creme de la creme of Chicago style pizzas over there. Okay. There's a couple other places downtown that are super legit as well, but I have had pizza in New York. You have? Okay. Okay. When I was where, where? Okay. First of all, when, I don't know the name of the place, but when I was working with, with blue cross blue shield, they sent me to Newark, New Jersey, Jersey, which is right across the river. Yeah. I'm from New York.

[02:11:29] And I was in a hotel and I ordered a pizza from somebody close by. It's supposed to be real good. When it came in, I went, Oh my goodness, this box is huge. And when I opened it up, the pizza slice was like, it's enormous. It's typical. And I ate it and it was good, but I wouldn't say it's better than Nancy's pizza. Hmm. But I don't know where I got it. Now in Kentucky, they have a place. I can't remember the name of it, but they're a pizza. The place that's by the college?

[02:11:58] Uh, in Lexington. Yeah. That place was good. They delivered to the hotel. It's right by the campus? Yeah. I guess so. They delivered to the hotel. That was pretty good. That place is really good. Yeah. That place is like a solid, like seven, nine, almost eight. Like that's a legit place. That's saying something. That's saying something. That's a legit place. That's good. Yeah. Yeah. That's almost like a New Haven style. It's really good. Well, it's like, it's like when me and Mark go to, go to tournaments, we know where to eat. And if it's a KFC, you can't go wrong.

[02:12:30] Look, man. Take it from the authority. Yeah. There's a guy named, there's a guy named Bobby Martin and a guy named Martin Metairi. So I used to travel both of them. If me and Bobby went somewhere, we'd stop at, uh, KFC, take a picture and send it to Mark. If me and Mark go somewhere to eat, we'll take a picture of KFC and send it to Bobby. It's just kind of a funny thing we do. Cause we all love KFC chicken. You know, you know, you know, KFC Kentucky fried chicken. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. It's been around for a long time. Long time.

[02:13:00] You know what they call pizza in Mississippi? What do they call it? They call it Mississippi pizza. Okay. You know what they call pizza in the land? No idea. Popeye's. Cardboard? Popeye's. Popeye's. Oh no. Popeye's. The place you're talking about is pies and pints. Oh really? Pies and pints. There you go. Well, it was good. I know that much. It was good.

[02:13:30] Real good. It's a, okay. For the people coming to Mississippi state, the rooms are sold out on Saturday night. I have a list of 14 hotels within a mile of this location. I have their address. I have the name of the hotel. I have their phone number. I have the price and I have their address. All on a little spreadsheet this big that I'm going to post later tonight on a Facebook post. Cool.

[02:13:58] And also you're hearing it first here. Registration is now open. As of now. As of now on the WFT software. Cool. I had the privilege of being on the phone, actually being on a video call with Reed and he had me set it up as we talked. Oh, that's cool.

[02:14:24] It was probably so much fun setting that tournament up. Yeah. The way they have it set up is unbelievable. It was a pleasure to do that. And they also have some options where you can clone tournaments or clone events and stuff like that. But I created all mine from scratch because I wanted to know how to do it. And he said he needs to make sure that the cloning part works. But, you know, it's going to eventually work. But that just, it took us about an hour.

[02:14:53] But I had four days of events to do. And we talked about it. And he showed me different things. But it was so cool on setting up. And in the future, if you do have your own Stripe account or something like that, you can have it where they can pay online. Mine's a cash only. So I don't have it where you can pay online. You have to pay at the tournament. And that's something I'll need to push out to everybody so they know. But anyway, yeah, the software is up. I'm going to do a step-by-step.

[02:15:23] I'm going to take a pitcher step one, a pitcher step two, a pitcher step three. Of how to set up your account if you don't already have one. It's real simple. Cool. I did it this past weekend on the phone with people and had them set up their accounts. Worked easy peasy. And, you know, that way, if players would do that, even if you don't pay online, if you'd set up your account, go ahead and sign up for your events, it makes it so much easier at the tournament. Okay.

[02:15:52] It avoids the long lines. The reason we've had long lines at the beginning of some of the tournaments is because they're setting up their accounts for the first time and they're not really sure on how to do it. And that does take some time. It takes about five or maybe even a little longer per person. But if you do it online, the ones that did it online, say, hey, man, here, I just need to give you some money. Boom, boom. It's over. Done deal. I'm going to do some training videos tonight and tomorrow so everybody in Mississippi come and can go ahead and get their account set up. Cool.

[02:16:18] But if you're interested in coming to Mississippi State, if you can't make up your mind, if you're on the fence, just you know who the players are from this area. So you're going to see some top players. You're going to see some good matches. And, you know, a lot of good food, good location. I have hotels close that you can get in. You can still get in our hotel probably for Thursday and Fridays. It's just Saturday is the problem. Booked up. Booked up solid, yeah. Yeah, booked up solid. So that means, you know, that's what promoters like to hear. Hey, we're booked up. Yeah.

[02:16:48] You know. And my block were sold out and there's still people signed up at the hotel for the tournament that aren't in my block. So it's going to be great. It's going to be a good weekend. Yeah, let's hope you get just the right amount. If you get too many that would make it difficult to get through the tournament, don't want that to happen. Yeah, I wouldn't want over 200 because that would be a little difficult. But I'll take around 160. There you go. 160 or 70.

[02:17:14] But, you know, I'm happy if I just have 125, you know. That way I know I'll at least break even. There you go. There you go. Well, best of luck with the tournament, I got to say. It's going to be fun. Yeah. We'll catch up at Worlds, by the way, and you can, you know, fill us in on the details, how things went, et cetera. But I think that's the next time we're all going to be in the same spot. I should also mention I just had a conversation with Randy Raposo this last week, and he's mending.

[02:17:43] You know, he's getting there. Not feeling all that up to snuff when it comes to coming back to the show right away, but he said he's making his plans for Worlds. So he will be back at least, you know, by that time at the end of August. Okay, well, cool. I didn't know anything was wrong with him. I guess I was out of the loop, but I'm hoping he's doing okay. Yep. He had surgery of his, I think it's the third shoulder surgery. Yep. So. Ouch. Yeah. Yeah. So. But this one is. Well, if he wouldn't hit the ball so hard. Yeah, right.

[02:18:14] I got to remind him, man, you got to chill it. You got to go take it easy. That's why I'm the tag camera. I can't do it no more. Right? It just, hey, it takes a lot out of you to do that. I'll tell you what. I played this past Saturday night and I played go to the whole time because I'm playing, I'm playing with an amateur partner, playing front. And this guy's really good. And he can be, he can be really good. Just little, little coaching here and there.

[02:18:37] But I slammed some balls out of the bat that hit his men so hard that if it had went in a hole, I would have felt like I was a hammer again. Well, keep it up. You know, don't, uh, we're not going to retire Don Wilson anytime soon from the table. That's for sure. No, again, uh, again, back, like what I said earlier, my passion is more than just the foosball. It's the meeting the people. Yeah. And making, you know, life, lifelong friendships. There you go.

[02:19:07] That's the best part about this. The foos family. Yep. Every single time, meet somebody new, get a chance to catch up with old friends. So, well. My wife just come in. You're still on air. I told you talk too much. We knew we were going to, this is going to happen, but you know. Yeah, that's her thing. You talk too much. Hey, you never shut up. Hey, you talk too much. You know. That's all right. Well, all right. Well, Don Wilson, thank you so much for joining us.

[02:19:34] Uh, and of course, Chase, you know, dude, thank you so much for, uh, for, for jumping in, man. I appreciate this. Oh, I enjoy it. Yeah. Chase is on the case. That's right. Indeed. As always. And, uh, looking forward to, uh, seeing you guys both in person in New Orleans. But, uh, meanwhile. Yeah. I hope that, uh, you know, if there's, there's anything else you want to tell us, Don, you know, you can always slip back on one of these times. Just let us know. Okay. Oh, I don't mind doing it, you know? All right. Uh, I enjoy, I enjoy it.

[02:20:04] Cool. Well, you talk too much. So yeah, I probably had to skip this next one. I'm, I'll be running a tournament. Hopefully, you know, my goal at Mississippi States is always try to be finished around midnight. There you go. On Sunday night, something like that. That makes sense. But you know, you asked about events. I did make some new stuff. Oh, you did. We have a, we have a master limited and the instructions are on the flyer. What the setup is. We have handicap. Uh, then we did a, a roto doubles. Oh, I like that.

[02:20:34] That's cool. Yeah. Where you got to swap after your score. Uh, and then we had a four on four mixed where you got at least one female on the team. Hmm. I like that. That was always been fun. I mean, if we have enough, good. If we don't. Oh, well, we tried. Yeah. Well, you got, you got to experiment. No question. So, well, uh, all the best to, to you and everybody going to Mississippi State and, and thanks for joining us, but, uh, you've been listening to episode number 306 with Don Wilson,

[02:21:00] Mississippi State championships and, uh, uh, Chase Pennell. I'm going to say that right this time. And, uh, myself. And, uh, of course we are looking forward to having you back next week as we bring you another episode of Foos Talk Live. Meanwhile, it's the Foos Talk Live Tournament Beat coming your way next. Time now for the Foos Talk Live Tournament Beat brought to you in part by foosgadgets.com. Using technology to create a better foosball experience. And by Boise Foos Works.

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[02:21:55] Contact Mike Veidt on Facebook Messenger or look for him at your next tour stop. Boise Foos Works. Saving the planet one ball at a time. Since 2019, Foos Gadgets has used innovative ideas to build foosball training tools and accessories. Their goal is to make your foosball practice more fun and effective. Hey Foosers. The Foos Gadgets Speed Bridge is a great tool for all of you practice-aholics out there like I am.

[02:22:22] From the Foos Gadgets Speed Bridge to the Tornado Gold Guard to the Gold Guard Plus. Visit the site for a great selection and pricing. Foos Gadgets dot com. Using technology to create a better foosball experience. Foosball tournaments are everywhere. Foos Talk Live proudly presents a weekly update of events near you. With the Foos Talk Live tournament beat. Here's what's up.

[02:22:48] Here comes the 2026 Mississippi State Foosball Championships. July 23rd through the 26th at Holiday Inn Pearl, Mississippi. The 2026 Ohio State Championships. July 30th through August 2nd. The competition comes to a new hotel. The Ohio Airport Marriott, Columbus, Ohio. East Coast Foosball presents the Duval Foosball Tournament.

[02:23:14] August 7th through the 9th at the Dart Bar, Jacksonville, Florida. Canada Foosball presents the 2026 Vancouver Island Foosball Championships. August 14th through the 16th. Courts in a Legion. Courts in a British Columbia. 518 Foosball presents the World Warm-Up Smashdown. Saturday, August 15th. Trick shots, billiards, and wicket eatery Clifton Park, New York. The World Foosball Tour presents the 2026 World Foosball Championships.

[02:23:43] September 2nd through the 6th at the Hyatt Regency. New Orleans, Louisiana. It's the 2026 Great Lakes Classic. Now scheduled for October 15th through the 18th. We'll keep you posted on the details. The North Carolina State Championships. Scheduled for November 26th through the 29th. More details soon to be released. It's the 20th Annual 2026 Louisiana State Championships. December 3rd through the 6th. Stay tuned for lots more details.

[02:24:13] Each week, we do our best to give you the most up-to-date listing of foosball tournaments near you. If you have an event you'd like to add, send us all the details at foosballradio at gmail.com. Tune in every week for the Foos Talk Live Tournament Beat. The Foos Talk Live Tournament Beat is brought to you in part by foosgadgets.com. Using technology to create a better foosball experience. And by Boise Foos Works. High-fidelity refurbished foosballs.

[02:24:44] Foos Talk Live is a product of Foosball Radio. With gratitude, we recognize our Foos Ball Radio Patreons. Our Foos Talk Live sponsor. Original-Leonhard-USA.com Tune in again next week for another episode of Foos Talk Live. In the meantime... We'll see you foosin'. Foos Talk Live is a production of Foos Talk Live. We'll see you next week for another episode of Foos Talk Live. We'll see you next week for another episode of Foos Talk Live.