Transcript of my conversation with Chris Fisher 5/18/2024

(0:19 - 38:18)

Hey everybody and welcome to another episode of Knocked Conscious. This is Mark here and I'm with a good person that I met recently. His name is Chris Fisher.

He is the play-by-play announcer for the Oklahoma City Thunder. I met him through actually through a business connection, but I heard his story and I reached out to him because I found it to be so inspirational and I'm always here to try to lift people up and provide inspiration so I thought I would ask him to come on and he's so gracious to provide his time and share his time with us. Chris are you there? I'm here.

How you doing? I'm doing good. How are you doing? Doing great, doing great. I hear a little bit of the Oklahoma draw.

Are you picking that up from the... No, don't say no. Am I really? Do I sound... I'm a California kid. I can't have that much influence in such a short amount of time.

How long have you been at it? Well I've been out here, this is my third year doing Thunder basketball and it's actually the longest that I've ever been out of California because the season has been so condensed going back to December when when it started in the preseason even actually before that with November when we flew out here to to get ready to go because it was such a short offseason, but it's been five months and that's the longest I've ever been out of California at one time. I'm gonna be going back here pretty soon but it with the season coming to a close but it's kind of been kind of crazy when you think about it like that. Yeah, it's crazy.

Has kind of COVID played into that whole time being away with separation everything? Just out of precaution or? Usually, built into the schedule there's always trips out to California and that's actually an interesting question because this is the first time that us broadcasters and the travel party are not traveling with the team. Usually we do and usually we are on the team flight, we're staying at the team hotel, on the team buses, we're on the exact same schedule as the players, the coaches, but because of COVID and I'm sure that people kind of notice this we've been grounded completely and this goes back to even when the NBA went to the bubble in Orlando, we didn't go to the bubble in Orlando with the team. Right, they had an announcer per, right? They had them kind of pre-scheduled? Yes, I mean we still called the games, we still broadcast the games, but we did them remotely from Oklahoma City literally inside the arena on Center Court.

Wow, how was that as a challenge? That must have been an interesting challenge for you. It was definitely a unique experience because you're obviously disconnected and you are watching the game on a monitor on a big screen much like the fans are at home. We're literally watching the exact same feed and the difference is though as soon as I put that headset on I'm getting the natural sound from the arena that's getting pumped into the arena and the players can hear it and some of those other microphones and so that's getting pumped back into my headset.

So you're actually getting those the faux cheering pieces or are you just getting like the squeaky the shoes and the quiet? Getting the faux cheering, getting the fake crowd noise, getting whatever ambient microphones are out there, we're getting that. I don't have any control over the levels of it but we're getting it fed back into my headset. Right, and you also don't have control over the way the person kind of feels the game's going to play the certain sounds.

Oh I absolutely love my pay grade, totally. Well that's what I'm saying that must that must influence your kind of emotions right when you hear like a cheer when it kind of looks like some kind of call the other way or something. Well that's that's exactly it I mean we're obviously reacting as to what's going on on the court from what we're watching on the monitor but it's so it's so crazy because you'll hear this all of a sudden loud jolt of cheering and I'm like well maybe they're just kind of playing around with the with the sound that it doesn't belong.

Sometimes they'll crank it up really high sometimes there's nothing but in the essence of it is that as soon as I put that headset on and start to hear a little bit of that ambient noise I can kind of go in the zone and everything else that's going on around me even though I'm in this completely silent quiet arena as long as I've got that headset on as long as I'm hearing a little bit of that fake crowd noise I can kind of get in the zone and go into a different place and call the game as if I'm there or do my best and it's gotten so good now that the majority of the fans probably that are watching probably can't tell you the difference between me being there and me not being there because the technology has gotten so good and the people behind the scenes that put the feeds together and all the audio they do such a good job that I don't think the people at home have any clue right there's so many technical challenges like syncing up the video with the audio from different feeds and then merging them and then getting them into one signal right unbelievable yeah no beyond me but they do a great job because it's it's gotten advanced it's gotten really advanced but anyways I haven't traveled going back to the original point I haven't traveled at any point during the season and every single game that we've called this year on the Oklahoma City feed here has been from Oklahoma City which is kind of crazy Wow yeah so so you are the play-by-play announcer you said now going on three years right like I said I heard your story of like kind of your history where you came from I understand you are a California guy went to school there and then you had some challenges in your life would you care to share a little bit about some of your challenges and how you got through them I just found your story so inspirational yeah it's you kind of got to hit the the rewind button a little bit and it's starting to get further and further in the rear view mirror but a good thing in its own healthy way right as long as healthy way I mean but maybe we can record it for posterity sake for you so you know you'll have a copy of this for you it is kind of crazy because it it seems to be getting smaller and smaller in the rearview mirror is as you get older and your experiences change and you you know you you come across different people in your your professional career but when I was 17 years old which was now I'm 36 so we're coming up on a few years I was in high school and just really just like any other 17 year old high school kid junior with all the distractions in the world I mean I'm we're talking just trying to chase girls looking for the next party all I want to do is be with my friends and look for another good time and just one random night actually wasn't too random it was the night before homecoming I was driving back from a good friend of mine's house out on the country road it was three of us I was in the front seat there was a friend of mine in the backseat and there was a driver of car and he was driving too fast no drugs no alcohol I was in the front seat and really wasn't paying a whole lot of attention to what the driver was doing I was looking through a book of CDs at the time and trying to find the next cool song to play and as I'm looking through this book of CDs I look up and the drivers going into this left turn and he was going way too fast and the car lost control and he flipped the car basically into a ditch and in the process me being in the front seat the car kind of rolled onto me and the top of the roof collapsed and essentially collapsed onto my head and my neck snapped and I broke my neck at C5 C6 and my spinal cord was totally completely compressed and I was totally paralyzed from the neck down and woke up in that moment and just total shock and not really sure what was going on it took me a couple minutes to realize that I was paralyzed because at first my first thought was my goodness you know we got in this car accident we're gonna have to tell our parents right 17 that you know we got into a little bit of a problem here and your parents are gonna be disappointed and there's gonna be consequences and that was my first thought it wasn't oh my god you know I can't move my arms my legs and this excruciating pain that I'm in and but then it did set in that this was the reality and and I was stuck there so it it ended up being a little while before the the responders got there but they did get me out and they flew me to the hospital that night and I ended up having surgery and it seemed like from that point forward I got a lot of really really really good fortune that sort of fell my way in my recovery that allowed me to to get back on my feet and I'm gonna make it a long story short here but ultimately I got back on my feet after that spinal cord injury after being paralyzed for seven months seven months yes yeah it was uh it was quite a quite a wild ride and my poor parents I mean my parents if for anybody that has kids I mean if anything goes wrong I mean you're you're you're obviously worried and you're concerned you're trying to to find them the best help and to get them whatever care they need but this is just like a nightmare coming to life for them I couldn't believe I couldn't imagine what they were going through that night my poor parents and sort of the the reality of what they were about to face and they were just amazing and seven months in in not seven months in the hospital's in the hospital for about two and a half months and in intensive care and then I was not only in intensive care but I was also an inpatient at a hospital down in Santa Clara California which was a spinal cord rehab facility and basically just had to relearn how to live had to relearn how to live in this new body that wouldn't function the way that normal people would function I mean we're talking everything from brushing my teeth to getting myself fed to getting dressed to getting out of bed to learning how to live in a wheelchair to getting into the wheelchair I mean it was it was brutal it was absolutely brutal because you you have a physical therapist that's trying to get you to learn how to utilize whatever muscle it is that you have in this body that has obviously been diminished physically and then you've got an occupational therapist that is really trying to get you to to learn how to function in daily life and that's like using this new adaptive device to help brush your teeth or take your meds or to drink a bottle of water or to make sure that you use the straw or trying to put your sock on in some way I couldn't put my sock on at the time but progressively you got there and it was just little triumphs right I don't I don't want to equate it to like a Mount Everest moment moment but it's one of those like I know what you mean it's it was crazy and one of those comes many of them came but one of them was when I could start to move my thumb and this was about a month after I got hurt and I was in the hospital and around I got hurt in October and it was around Thanksgiving and I could start to move my thumb and everybody was like oh my gosh that's a huge deal big deal cuz I couldn't move my hands at the time and it was a sign that some signal was getting from my brain through the injury site down my spinal cord to an area where it shouldn't and so that was a really big moment right that's a huge moment was that the first was that the first one or did you have a sensation of touch do you remember the first time after the incident no I remember the first is the first movement came after the first sensation and to be completely candid mark the crazy thing about it was being 17 I was so young I was so naive I didn't know the extent of my injury I didn't know how significant it was I didn't know that ninety-nine percent of the people that suffer my same injury are sent to a fate that is unfair and they're stuck in a wheelchair and they're motionless and they can't move and they can't feel from their neck down from the chest down and in my mind I didn't really comprehend that number one and I didn't believe that it was going to be me number two so time went on well not not a whole lot of time I was still in an ICU and my sister one of my sisters was just kind of messing around with my feet and kind of grabbing my toes and just just being an older sister and just trying to prod me and annoy me more than anything and I was she said can you feel that and I was just kind of like yeah I can what's the big deal and everybody just kind of like lost it like wait you can feel that I was like yeah I can feel it what's the big deal of course I can feel it and so in an interesting way being so young it when this happened to you kind of gate it was it almost like a false bravado cuz like I could understand spirits being down and and overcoming right and kind of having those depressive moments or those sad moments where you have to pull you through I was too young and I I mean I was really frustrated the first night and the first night I got kind of upset and sort of realized hey I can't move this is probably kind of serious and I I was able to have some conversations with my family and kind of settled me down in the moment and I ended up having surgery that night I was out of it for a few days but it never I don't think that's a severity ever really quite set in and because of that I being 17 and being young and being naive always thought that I was gonna get back on my feet hundred percent I always had a kind of an athletic mentality that that I would sort of find my way back on my feet and and and you know you just had these little moments where and fate was kind literally it comes down to that mark I mean I have no legitimate explanation as to why I was more fortunate than other people I was relentlessly positive through the whole process I know that I think that's it I think that's a huge I mean that meant the body follows the mind in a lot of ways so it probably did it probably did because I just remember being weirdly in a good mood every single day and happy and I was so so fortunate that you know being in 17 and at that time I went to a high school it wasn't too big but it was a it was a high school that had a tremendously strong community feel and I had a lot of really close friends and I was really close with their families and this community really rallied for me in a lot of ways I think that I rallied around that and they rallied around me and my family and I didn't see anything that was going on on the outside and that was probably good because I think that there were probably a lot of tears and a lot of concern from from family and friends that never seemed to trickle back in to the hospital and that allowed me to really stay in a good mood and I just I had so much support from everybody that had ever come across in across my path and just the cards the calling the support of the love the visits I mean it was it was daily daily so I think that's awesome I really think I mean a long way and there were other people that didn't I mean I was in I was in an ICU room not an ICU room but when I got discharged from the ICU room and I went down to rehab I had two roommates at the time and one of them was a young man who lived in a poor neighborhood in the Bay Area and got shot in a drive-by and the bullet nicked his spinal cord and he didn't have people coming in to the hospital every single day and you know I look back on it now and I'm just like boy that poor guy that poor kid I wish I could go back and and do it do more for him and the guy another older man was run off the road driving he was he was somebody that had some affiliation with a gang I think and somebody ran him off the road and he ran into the median and he was in a car accident too and it damaged his spinal cord so and they didn't have the same kind of support and people coming to visit them every single day so I think that that played just a huge factor in my mindset which had to have played a role in that the process of healing my body in some sure form yeah without a doubt I mean it sounds sounds like it's a it's a nod to the community that you grew up in and and the people that you surrounded yourself with big time growing up big time yeah I could never I'm still close with a lot of people you can't you can't give up on those kind of people that that were there for you and you're your lowest time so it was a little bit more of a rural area in California then that you grew up I wouldn't call it rural not it was less Los Angeles oh it's definitely not Southern California so the California right is is a world within itself I mean Southern California Northern California for people that have been there it's not the same by yeah I mean it's a different state it's so dense it's so heavily populated the Bay Area is populated too but in a different way you're just for sure really not on top of each other the same way but it was in a part of Northern California just north of San Francisco I'm sure people be familiar with it Sonoma County and Santa Rosa and kind of right there on the edge of the wine country a little bit so yeah I had a friends in Hollister and Gilroy or that that's a little further south that's okay it's a little I'll be honest I'm from Philadelphia I know nothing about California I it's it's naivete I'll admit it nothing about it so you don't go visit or anything I like I mean I've driven to San Diego and Los Angeles I've driven places before flown places but it's just one of those things I've been to San Jose went to a couple of Sharks games and whatnot it's dipping a toe mark that's not it is dipping a toe it's true but so so you had this community come you grow up in this community and now you move out to Oklahoma City which you know when you think Oklahoma City you'd think kind of salt-of-the-earth community type town is that kind of the the city you're in you're skipping a lot of years there but oh boy all right well let's let's go through and wonder what I share with this no I'm here for you so I've got all day I'd love to hear your story I'm really I'm really inspired by it because I had a car accident at 13 I just broke just above my femur so what you went on the body yeah what you went through just sounds just sound what I you know just from what I heard and then the stories I read or the articles I read I was just just inspired it sounds like you just had this really amazing community that kept you in good spirits and that had to have really aided in that in that recovery process well there are there are times when you you sort of look back and you you say to yourself boy how could I possibly you know go back and try to repay these people that were there for me and a lot of them are still my good friends and and they played a pivotal role but you know I've always tried to go back and say thank you and to keep in touch with the people that were there which is really hard the older you get and as your career is going different as my career has gone where it has and being out of California and not sort of having the same connection and you know when when you go to high school you think that those are gonna be your friends forever and a lot of them you lose touch with but I'm still very good friends with a lot of the people that were there during those years and as you know I'm sure you got your boys yeah they made so much fun of me which to you know kind of kept me grounded and I had a this purple wheelchair and oh that's like a hot rod wheelchair yeah it was a hot rod wheelchair and had rubber bands on the side so I had so I could grip it and stuff like that hey they were constantly making fun of me so it was good and it kept you grounded they still do today you know they still do today so it's great but you know going from going from the Bay Area I was I was fortunate that I was able to to get back as a lot of independence a lot of independence to where I walk now and I split a cane and I've got a little bit of a limp with with my left side being weaker than my right side and that's okay I mean you're still athletic I mean you still play play some activities recreational sports and whatnot right mark I cannot play enough golf it's there you go it's terrible how many how many holes how many holes a month sir come on well it depends it depends in what time of the year it is because it does get a little chilly out here that the courses freeze over and I don't this body doesn't like the cold anymore it's very very sensitive give me out to Arizona where you're at come on out I pressure all the time my friend gosh it's so nice it's so nice but I'll get out there I'll play during the summertime boy as much as possible there's a lot of muni courses out here in Oklahoma which are really easy to get on oh that's great oh yeah get getting out getting moving I will say this the crazy part about it is I can you can if I golf you can pretty much tell that I can I had an injury if I go out and ski cuz skiing I love to ski before I got hurt the craziest thing is I am a better skier now than I am a walker I can ski the exact same way now that I did before I got hurt I turn the same way I have the same exact feel I haven't lost the ability it's the craziest thing in the world mark I will go when he what was your first time on skis how long have you how long has this been a passion is this your since like babies I was three probably oh it's amazing my my dad always always brought us up to to the snow in Tahoe and my two older sisters and he was always pushing us to get out there to try things to challenge ourselves and I'm sure it was hard as hell on him because I was probably a pain in the ass a lot I was younger and push back a lot and probably had a little bit of attitude but we constantly went to go skiing and it was always like hey let's go to the snow if you want to go skiing let's go we pack us up and go and and we had a little spot and that's I loved it and I did it all throughout my entire childhood up until I was 16 I didn't get to the ski season of when I was 17 because it was my accent was in October but I got pretty good and and it never went away it was like riding a bike yeah when not believe it how often do you get to go now I would assume it be a little more challenging there's not too many mountains or I haven't been in three years okay we got to get you back yeah it's been a little tough with the NBA schedule just because of you just can't with the games and they don't have too many hills here in Oklahoma but before I was going I'd go and spend a week in in Utah and go and ski snowbird and just get after it mammoth I had a buddy that was living with me at the time and we would go and ski mammoth as much as possible and you would it's just it's the ultimate freedom of getting out into the into the outdoors and feeling the wind and getting on the mountain and the crisp air you just can't put a price on that and it's the it's the most normal that I will ever feel I think that's cool my body now is being on the slopes and getting on a chairlift and we definitely have to get back to that for sure then you know you don't ever lose that it clearly didn't go away the first time I just mean the matter you just don't want to lose the freedom of it the feeling cuz you don't know you haven't done it in a couple years no no I got to get back I got to get back out there and it's it's calling me I mean every single every single winter time I got my buddies that are like man we just had the greatest day at Kirkwood oh my god you know it's four feet of powder wish you're out here I'm like yeah great I'm from the East Coast we had four feet of ice I know I know I'm very familiar we make shaved we make shaved ice snow cones and everything it's beautiful yeah but if you can learn how to ski out there you can learn how to ski anywhere it's so bad yeah it is bad but we it's not the knee-high powder either so it's a totally different kind of muscle use you know you're not carving you're kind of trying to stay probably relax you're not fighting it you're surviving yeah exactly yeah white-knuckled right so growing up did you play any other sports I just it was it was casual it was casual snow skiing was was always number one golf golf came a little bit later soccer played a ton of soccer and then you know you have your other sort of ancillary sports to just play with your boys or whatever whatever time of the season it is you know hey do you want to go play basketball yeah I only play down the street pavement hockey and yeah most my most my crew in high school played basketball and so I'd go and play basketball with them I could imagine you know what's crazy mark I couldn't imagine playing one sport year-round everybody plays like one sport they finally they get to the point where they want to take a sport seriously because they probably want to go and get a scholarship somewhere how do people play one sport year-round yeah I don't get it well I mean I guess offseason a lot of like a lot of pitchers have like a pitchers hockey players have golf right so they break it up a little bit but to your point I I couldn't do it it's it's it's it's just it's not diverse enough for me like a pitcher a pitcher throws the ball I know you have different grips and everything but like that's kind of what a pitcher does is catch the ball and throw the ball but I couldn't I couldn't imagine being in eighth grade and saying you know what I am going to commit to one sport all throughout the rest of my youth because it's this is my ticket to getting a college scholarship or this is my ticket to getting drafted or this is my ticket to because I have to do it because I have to compete with my peers because if I don't they're gonna surpass me and I'm like your body's gonna break down yeah there is definitely the overuse right using the same muscles and the same movement and everything interesting story I remember when I was at USC which is where I went to college Pete Carroll would always talk about the guys that he would want to recruit and he would always ask recruits do you play multiple sports and that was always a high priority for him do you play multiple sports yes no did you play basketball in high school as you play these other sports because he always felt like it was better for balance and and for for just your body and and your competitiveness and sort of your curiosity in your mind of going out and playing different sports so I always thought that was really interesting yeah it does change the IQ because you do see from different perspectives you know playing multiple sports so it is neat to your point but like when you when you want to get great at something you have to focus you have to just really refine into one and and there is that mental I don't know if it's a toughness or just an ability maybe it's a support system as well people helping encourage you stay focused on one to get you through it well I mean there comes a point for these kids when they're younger they they have to probably face a decision they feel pressure to go and to commit to a sport because that's the sport that they're best at and that's the sport that they feel like is their ticket and so they'll commit to it I don't I don't get it I mean I think that the more balanced you are the better I think it's gonna serve you better in the long run I think it's gonna serve your body better in the long run but I'm no sport scientist I'm no expert I just know that when I was younger having that sort of breakup of hey you know you're gonna play soccer in the fall you're gonna ski in the wintertime you're gonna play golf in the spring in the summer that to me was a really fun way to keep my body healthy to keep my my friendships different to to sort of just mix things up yeah I don't know that's how it was when I was good but I'm only hearing this because it just seems like more and more kids these days are specializing yeah yeah well I think I think specializing is right I think what happens is to it depends on where it is right you've got some areas that are specialized for like military and like trying to get out via athletics right so a lot of the options the options aren't seen bigger than like one or two options well I guess if you played if you grew up in where you grew up to probably has a big part to do with it we grew up in Minnesota you're gonna play hockey yeah that too for sure if you grew up in Arizona you're probably gonna play golf baseball right well I'm just saying like say you're in a pill in a place that there's not many options to get better in the in the world right it's an area that's just not supported in that way what do you mean like an inner city for example right to get out right get out right so a lot of people use sports to get out hundred percent so we if you don't see those options outside of sports or the military or something pretty myopic you don't it's not that those options aren't there or not there you just don't see them so you just can't filter you know to see them and then you kind of specialize into that niche yeah without a doubt sometimes you just get funneled in that direction because that's that's sort of what your your economics say it's what your geography says yeah there are definitely circumstances and there and we've I've heard of you know the industry the different situations and I'm not here to get political or get anything in its specific organizations but you know people take advantage of it right like Don King took advantage of Mike Tyson as a boxer well once they get to that level right coach is taking care yeah in high school though you've got the coach level right to kind of get you funneled into a you know this group that gets you noticed to move up right within that that is a whole other bag of right I'm trying I'm trying to try to tiptoe around it for sure yeah that's I'd be way to outside of my breath and depth to talk about that this moment so yeah but so you you went to USC so how long did you go right out of did you graduate high school on time at 18 or or 17 or whatever so yeah the way that it broke down was I I got really lucky that crazily enough based off of when my injury occurred within the school schedule I ended up missing about I want to say like a quarter and a half of school okay when I was in the hospital and there I was not going back full-time but by the time I got back into my wheelchair and discharged from the hospital we're talking two and a half months after the injury but I was very much still in a wheelchair and limited during that time I was still able to go to school not a couple of classes just enough to to kind of stay involved to to learn to to take the proper tests I couldn't even write people had to write for me Wow so and the school was incredibly accommodating and was worked with me and worked with my schedule it was reduced I think I took like three or four classes I still was going through really really intense therapy at the time and my junior year I ended up just kind of earning enough credits my junior year of high school and then by the time that I went back my senior year my senior year of high school I was walking and was ready for a full schedule again so I had just enough credits and I had all the prerequisites taken care of and by that point mark I knew what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do that was a good thing about it and the crazy thing is that junior year my junior year of high school I took a trig class trigonometry and I've never taken another math class since so you know what you didn't want to do how did you figure out what you wanted to do well I think that it came down to it's actually an evolution I just like everybody else when you're young and you're passionate about your sports teams I love sports we played sports I consider myself an athlete I knew I wanted to be involved in sports and when I couldn't play anymore I had to find a way to kind of get that competitive fire out and so my gravitation toward it all just intensified and at that point the San Francisco Giants were really really good they had Barry Bonds who in 2001 yeah the home run record of of Mark McGuire he had 73 home runs and then the very next year they ended up going to the World Series and lost game seven and I was just so in touch and enamored and glued to this whole experience and the Niners had had great teams over the years with with Jerry Rice and Steve Young and they won the Super Bowl 94 and that had such an impact in my youth so I'm a little bit older than you so I remember the 90s even the 84 you know we're talking with Montana the four with Montana so I remember those so I mean those those were such a big deal and it's the reason why the Niners are the most popular team in the Bay Area by a wide margin because of of those incredible years in the 80s when they won four Super Bowls but I just I was so locked in and that love only exponentially got greater and I was like I have got to be a part of this somehow there's there's just no way around it I'm not gonna be passionate about anything else and when I was in college I just started to kind of figure out well how am I gonna get this done and I if anybody that knows me back in the day I would not shut up I would not stop talking and so I resemble that remark I wouldn't shut up and I just figured you know what maybe I'll just get into the sports commentary somehow and figure out a way to do it I had no idea if I had a good voice I had no idea if I could be a broadcaster if it was gonna be play-by-play or you want to do studio hosting you know you want to do radio do you want to do TV no idea but I like to yapping and I liked being competitive and I liked talking a lot of shit so whatever people wanted to get after it I would get after it and that would and that would have been big-time Sports Center heyday at that time oh huge I mean so you've got your Dan Patrick's and your and your Oberman back in the day and are just yucking it up I mean they're and it's a great show. Stuart Scott, Rick Isen, Larry Poole. For sure.

(38:18 - 1:19:18)

Scott Van Pelt, everybody. Scott Van Pelt like things things were taken off I mean yeah it was just Sports Center was only growing things more and more and it had the market cornered at that time it didn't even have competition so it was just crushing it for a few years. Totally, totally and and so I ended up going when I went to USC I I remember going to my first USC football game and going to the Coliseum and this was 2004 with Matt Leiner and Reggie Bush and they'd come off their national championship season.

Yeah we know Matt Leiner in Arizona yeah we know. Yeah he took down ASU in Arizona a couple times. No I just mean he he joined the Cardinals and was.

Oh oh because of Arizona Cardinals. Yes that was not the most successful stint. I threw almost as many passes I think I'm not sure almost.

Well I remember I remember going into the Coliseum and it was so big and I was so overwhelmed that I was like how in the world can I get involved in this what do I got to do and it was intimidating it was really really intimidating at first and I went throughout that entire fall I'm just kind of like yeah I don't I don't know I don't know what I'm doing here and I finally just said you know what I'm gonna email the sports information director and see what what might be available and at that point I hadn't even pursued the student radio station or whatnot but the sports information director at the time and he's still a sports information director his name is Tim Tessalon emailed me back and he said hey I'm gonna get you in touch with the people at KSCR which is the the student-run radio station and Kevin Shaw was his name he was the sports director and Kevin Shaw said hey come out meet everybody you know it's a little late in the season but you know it'll it'll be good to familiarize yourself with everybody and maybe maybe line something up for next year yeah hit the ground running right hit the ground running exactly and they threw me on a couple of radio shows at the end of the season and did a couple of updates and we're treating it like it's you know ESPN radio and trying to try to make it as professional as possible and then going into that next season my my second year at USC they they won the national championship that year and and then there was a new sports director and his name was Dan Page very good friend of mine still and we started calling the football games on the student radio station and that's that's kind of how it got going and we traveled and we called the games from the Coliseum and that was it I was like this is what I'm doing and I was very and I will say this if anybody if any young person out there is listening if you can figure out what you're doing this is not to put any pressure on anybody but sooner in life the quicker you can figure out what you want to do the better because I'll never forget being able to just in my mind say I am gonna throw all my chips on the table here and pursue this professionally because I know that there's nothing else that I'm gonna want to do there's nothing else I'm gonna want to invest my time in that I'm gonna feel like I'm gonna get the same return and I think that's even the bigger message right is like finding that you have you can merge your passion in your and your career and it's a lot it's a lot harder to do I mean it is the choices that everyone has nowadays is crippling you can do anything you want to do I mean seriously pick anything and go right like I mean start right but you can do it at home now yeah you don't even have to be in the office to do it because of technology and how far advanced we are in our telecommunications it's just incredible and you don't even have to be at a sporting event going back to what we're talking about earlier to call a game I have a really strong suspicion that in like 30 40 50 years you're gonna do it's gonna be like bubble it'll be teams representing cities but it'll be one location or one like little sports complex it'll eliminate travel and everything will be like you know the the camera angles are so good nowadays you know I mean this is way down the road I mean I'm not it's not I don't think it's really predictive it's just more evolutionary I mean that's the direction it seems to be going who knows I mean it it could get there I mean you you're probably gonna be able to punch in on your TV you know whatever game you want to watch and in any given sport and anywhere in the world and you're gonna have access to it why the eSports and look at these eSports just to make taking off like crazy now I mean kids aren't getting hurt they might get a little carpal tunnel with the joy with the game controller but he sports is unbelievable they rent out these NFL stadiums and we'll have these drone races or something whatever they are and I'm like what the drone racing league I have seen that I am I can't even follow it it is amazing but I will put it on it's unbelievable billion dollar industry billion dollar industry fun growing and just growing it's so beyond me I I just it's amazing how quickly things are changing so whenever anybody asked me like you you know what what advice would you give I would say just start doing whatever it is you want to do from home and because you can do it there's ways to do it and you don't have to be you know in a in a in a packed arena to call a game yeah it's don't so try to give yourself as much experience as possible and I think that's such good advice and it is it is just more and more challenging with the increase in choices you know it really it really does change it is it is because there's there's a million different avenues I mean there's there's jobs that right now did not exist when I was starting out because of what maybe it's like social media or the the progression of the internet and the one that cracks me up right now do you remember when journalists were fact-checkers that was like kind of the job of the journalist was to fact-check it's kind of in like in the job description well now they have a job called fact-checkers I'm on Twitter and it's like journalist or fact-checker confirmed journalist story and you're like isn't that the journalist job right to confirm its own story it's true it's really weird so like to your point all these niche openings of just different avenues of doing things it's good it's good it's giving for sure a lot more opportunities no doubt there's a lot smarter people now like I couldn't I'm so rudimentary in in sort of my technology skills I couldn't imagine I mean I'm like a one-trick pony here with throw me a headset because I've been training myself over these years to do that that all these new jobs that have evolved I couldn't even begin to try to tell you how to do them or to break into them other than more of more of these sort of big concepts of you know try to try to do something and figure out if you like it or not and try to do it from home and try to get yourself a little bit of experience and all that kind of stuff so it's just it's just it's just wild how quickly things have advanced but yeah for sure and and so for you so you come out of the radio station and then start doing the television for USC on campus the campus channel what happened well so during the time at USC which speaking of technology I became close with at the time the video director video coordinator of USC athletics and right when and this was just me sort of working my way into Heritage Hall which was the athletic building at USC because of the context that I made just being a student and going to events and saying hey I need a credential this and that I wore them out I was there all time it's awesome I built a lot of really good relationships with a lot of people that I'm still friends with today but one of those was was Rich Rodriguez and Rich was like hey look man you know USC Trojans.com is gonna start putting these games on the internet whether it was women's volleyball or a women's soccer update and my favorite men's baseball and so me and Rich we were tight and we would just go around sporting event to sporting event sporting event and like hey let's call this let's do it and he would he would set up the camera and we do the baseball game or we do the women's soccer update or we do the women's volleyball game and that was that was it so I got a lot of really really valuable experience doing those events and they were unsure I mean I didn't know anything about women's volleyball but you know it's funny it's a skill set totally you know for sure this podcast we're on I think your number episode 99 I think actually 98 or 99 and it's one of those things where if I listen to the first five I am absolutely unlistenable you know some of the most important things I want to talk about I have zero skill set and I was a singer in a cover band for a long time and I've done things like this but it is still a different it's still something new and you it's a steep learning curve but you get there and you listen to yourself in this instance and you're probably like man that just does not sound good yes it does sound good can we erase that or can I redo it yeah the one you wish you could redo well my old coat my former co-host was a USC nut nut job in a good way he was just a fan that was his thing like he grew up in California and the USC was his just his school and we did something on the on like a Catholic Church with a buddy of his had some stuff that happened there and it was one of these really raw emotional things and here I'm saying real quick every two seconds it's like hashtag real quick is like a t-shirt I need to come up with because I'm saying real quick real quick jumping in you know not learning like the conversation to come to you you know that the skill set of play-by-play I can only imagine how intricate that is and how how much you practice that so the interesting thing about play-by-play is it's a constant work in progress no matter what and and this was my mindset back in college because to that point when you when I would go back and I would listen to my early games even when I was in college I would just cringe it was cringeworthy what what are you talking about how can you possibly think that sounds good what are you saying right now why aren't you getting your color analyst involved why is there so much dead air and so then in a lot of ways you get a little overwhelmed they're like am I really supposed to be doing this but my mindset was look this next broadcast I am going to focus on one specific thing and I kind of equate it to an artist sculpting a piece of clay and let's say you're sculpting a piece of clay into a person's body one day you got to work on the head the next day you got to work on the legs the next day you got to work on the body and you because you're not going to be able to do it all at once and you're not going to be able to do it all one in one broadcast yeah it's like an over what it's like like to your point it's a job where you have that checklist and for me it was that it's remove the ums and the ands and the ohs right and then it's remove the so and then remove the real quick and then remove this and you work on each little piece and you hone it and refine it every single time and every time you will literally say to yourself I don't care if I screw up everything else but I am not going to do this one specific thing today right or I am going to do this one specific thing today and I don't care if it affects everything else that happens in this broadcast but I am going to make it a point and if that's your mentality I don't think it's a bad mentality and not at all because but that's a great that's a great piece and work in progress right is like to that's a great tool to teach others is to focus on one thing and hone that and then move on to the next you know it certainly helped me in a lot of different ways but also along those lines doing it consistently and that's another factor where where I put it in my head like I have to do this on a regular basis and I knew that leaving college I was by no means anything close to a finished product and I I didn't think that I was in a position where people would take me seriously still and so my mindset was not to go into TV my mindset leaving college and leaving USC was to get into baseball to get into minor league baseball to get into radio to get on the radio okay you get a triple-a like triple-a like that or what yeah so what happened was is my first job was from the baseball winter meetings in Nashville Tennessee in December of 07 I went out there submitted my my reel and my resume that I put together from doing the college baseball games with the mindset that I that that's what I would do because I needed number one to get better I needed to get better as a broadcaster and doing radio every single day was was my way of doing it and I figured I'd go and move my way up and maybe get a major league baseball job but two it was also where I felt like all the opportunities were you go and there was the what was it called it was like a minor league baseball job fair and professional baseball job or something something like that and all these minor league teams would come in there post their jobs and I felt like that was my best way to break into the industry and somehow I snagged a job with a team in Woodbridge Virginia and I'm kidding I'm kidding it was a fantastic experience Virginia's for lovers it's perfect it's good Virginia just south of DC and I mean don't get me started on I-95 and the traffic people get I am Philadelphia man I live I-95 mark how do people live with themselves back there everyone gives LA a hard time he has lanes bumper-to-bumper traffic this net you know what at least LA traffic moves but yeah I-95 not a DC area for sure not in Baltimore over there Bellway it's a tight belt that doesn't move yeah and Philadelphia's just constant construction we just drive into potholes and it's it's a mess yeah it's awful I don't know how people do it but anyways I was my first trust me the East Coast and West Coast it's so funny that that like it is a hard there's a hardness on the East and there's a there's a lot there's just a different mentality in the West it's like an easy it they both work but they both are approach from totally different mindsets totally different mindsets but I'll never forget I'll never forget driving in the DC just being like we are literally stuck yeah DC is awful I heard is hell absolutely tragic traffic but it was a great experience because I was fresh out of college and it gave me an opportunity it was advanced day was the level wasn't triple-a or double-a or anything I was a single a and I was the number two but they gave me an opportunity and I was the happiest clam you could possibly find because I was I was in I got my foot in the door it's gonna be great it's gonna be fantastic I'm gonna work my way up and become a major league baseball broadcaster and of course you know things change and you take left turns in your career and it doesn't end up that way but the the one thing that I remember from that experience is just how important it was to one get the reps which I was fortunate to get because it allowed me to make a lot of mistakes and we need that ability to be able to make mistakes without the judgment side of that so many mistakes and that's not you need to freely make mistakes because we can only learn from them we avoiding mistakes doesn't actually you don't learn from avoiding the mistake 100% you just delay causing it here's the best way to put it and this is this is how I learned my way around LA put away your phone and don't look at at your Google Maps or whatever get lost the way you're gonna learn your way around a city or neighborhood is to like make a million different wrong left turns that's how I learned my way around LA we didn't have iPhones back then yeah if you hit the water you're going too far I mean let's like you turn back around and go the other way exactly exactly or you end up on the wrong freeway and yeah but then you could be like judgment night situation where like you know the guys get caught in a bad neighborhood and they get a flat tire and that could just be a bad movie way down in a bad neighborhood so we feel comfortable so while you were doing the baseball stuff were you working also like full-time doing so because I can only imagine it wouldn't it doesn't sustain you right or you're either taking on loads of debt or you're either working like 92,000 hours a week right I was I was fortunate to get some help definitely I was definitely fortunate to get a little bit of help from from my parents and yeah but that's not once again it speaks to your community and the people that can help you and that's a beautiful thing you recognize that and acknowledge that without a doubt I mean nobody nobody gets anywhere on by themselves and but they knew that I was taking it seriously and that this is what I wanted to do and that I was committed to it and yeah that I wasn't taking it lightly or like hey look this is some joy ride out on the East Coast yeah you're not hanging out in Virginia let's not kid ourselves Jersey Shore and then by Newport News you want to be a Newport News I don't know exactly a tough tough area right but so that how many years did you spend in Virginia with the sink with the minor league team one year okay here and one year because they wanted me to sell billboards in the offseason and I remember this vividly thinking in my head so I sell billboards in the offseason don't broadcast spend the winter where it's freezing your toes off still bad traffic still bad traffic and you're not gonna at least have bad traffic in good weather in LA right but I mean it just didn't equate to me why would I do this and so I basically just took a chance on myself and said I'm gonna go back to LA find some broadcasting in LA whatever that might be just so that I continue to broadcast and I'll take a chance on myself and I'll get another job next year whatever it might be doing doing minor league baseball and it was a really critical critical decision that I made because I bet on myself with no guarantees that my career was going to continue which I wanted to continue in baseball that was to me that was my path that was my way of moving up that was my way of building a career so you put all you kind of put all your eggs in the baseball basket in this at this point at this point yes after my first year and and betting on yourself always do that that's another one you know a great piece of advice it's tough it feels scary and it feels uncertain but you are the best controller of your life it just felt right it just felt right to to try to carve out a different pathway than the one of staying in Virginia and staying with the Nationals staying with Potomac for sure felt right and I packed up my car put it on a truck shipped it back to California and I flew back and waited for it to arrive and so at that point it may be the the biggest weirdest break I ever got was I think in November of that offseason not maybe even a little bit before I think it was November Rich Rodriguez who I mentioned earlier from USC who I was really close with with the video department calls me up and he says fish hey what do you want to do women's basketball 20 USC women's basketball this year and I'm like and at that point I've been doing high school football in Southern California for my buddy who is starting up this company and I first I said Rich no I don't want to do women's basketball what do you think come on man how would I do it and it was it was so short-sighted and I called him back probably a week later after thinking it over and I thought it over why wouldn't I do it it's USC it's basketball it's another sport you diversify you add it to your resume like why wouldn't you do it you're gonna you're gonna travel with the team great opportunity call him back and say Rich absolutely I'll do it and it was the first major left turn of my professional career because it changed my career for forever yeah and at that was a pivot is a pivot that you're not you're not looking back but you're not into that well it's it was something that I accepted but during that season during that that one year of doing women's basketball midseason or maybe more toward the later part of the season the men's basketball broadcaster same as Rory Marcus rest in peace Rory who I was also very close with just through the years of being associated with with the Trojans and USC he passed away and it was so sad because Rory was such a big part of USC men's basketball he had done it for I think 11 years and we loved him he was a great guy he also did the Anaheim Angels on the side Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim now oh yeah absolutely and I caught my first really really big break of my career because after that season they moved me over from women's basketball to men's basketball at 25 years old that's great that they realized that they had talent and at least at least potential but certainly talent in currently in their group a lot of times people look outside of the that immediate circle and it creates resentment things like that well they easily could have there were plenty of people who gladly would have taken that job a USC job yeah I think so yeah pretty pretty certain and I was 25 and a complete unknown and in a big market and all of a sudden you know what is USC doing hiring this kid and I was so raw still so raw but what year with what year was that 2010 oh I wonder if like I know internet was kind of start social me was starting there I wonder with it were they kind was anyone kind to you being so young I mean did there were definitely some ruffled feathers okay I could totally see it because you've got you know conservative old guard of like old-school USC people right and then you know you're what you 25 when you get this job is that correct oh my god it's amazing it was it was kind of unheard of at the time yeah there were definitely some people who probably felt like they deserved a little bit more and that's okay it was okay because you there's times when you feel like you deserve it and you don't get it but you know you put the time in so as long as you're honest with yourself yes you know that's the way life is I mean it's unfortunately there's one position for everyone to fight over you know well I I put a lot of a lot of things daily in Jose Eskenazi who ultimately made the decision Mike Garrett was the athletic director at the time and and your buddy Rich who got you into basketball I mean that person honed your skill and got you eyes so that the next year you could transition to this it was tremendous and I was so fortunate and but I still continue to do minor league baseball that's the crazy thing mark is I did I did that season of USC women's basketball I got a job as a number one doing more minor league baseball up in Oregon for another team okay and you love it right I mean it's cuz you love that you I think that's the passion right that tells you where it really lies inside of you because you wouldn't do minor league baseball once you hit a certain level because you don't look back I mean to go back to that just tells to speak to your passion for it yeah I did I did minor league baseball for two more years and just for just for being with around the guys it was fun it was a summer thing right and built that camaraderie I mean there's so many benefits to that yeah it was it was a great experience I have a lot of good friends from from those years I'm still close with up in Oregon so did that and then I was with USC for for eight years eight years doing USC hoops and and boy it was there's nothing like being able to do it for your alma mater because you'll never care about another school the same way that you care about the school that you graduated from and the people that you you've met and cultivated relationships over the years and the coaching staff those are really important things that you you build and it's a big part you big part of your life for sure so yeah I was I was there for eight years before before the Oklahoma City Thunder so how did this happen so I tell talk me through this little chain of events you're you're with USC men's basketball at this point right eight years in eight years and boom how does isn't how to talk me through what happened how you got to OKC well over the years with USC I had I had sort of transitioned over and done some some TV work for a pack of network and Fox Sports being in Southern California and having an opportunity to do some some games for those networks and while you do those you build up a reel and the Thunder in the summer of 18 decided to transition to a new broadcaster and had an open position and my agent submitted my reel to the Thunder and I think it ended up being pretty late in the process in September of 18 the Thunder season starts in September doesn't early October October yeah okay yeah because it's kind of parallels the hockey season this was this was a really good number the Thunder called and and decided to fly me out for an interview and it ended up being over the course of multiple days three days and somehow I convinced them to hire me mark over that three-day interview and it was it was it was a gauntlet I mean it was a car wash of an interview over I think three three days or so how many people would you say you at least had some kind of interaction during the interview process like 20 executives or oh gosh it was everybody just like fill the arena made you stay in the middle right basically it was a Q&A of the lower bowl no there's a lot a lot of them are my you know my friends now and it was just like hey sink or swim man but have fun and you're talking everybody and it was it was a it was a an intense experience but one that I I remember having a lot of confidence going into because of my experiences that I had to draw upon I said myself look if I if you can get through what you've been through in your life you can get through any kind of interview it's not gonna be bigger it's not gonna be more intimidating it's not gonna be harder to overcome just be yourself for sure and if you're yourself either they're gonna like you or they're not and you try to be as genuine as possible and try to show them who you are as a person because there's plenty of good broadcasters out there that are very capable of doing the job and doing it extremely well so I think that the more that you can showcase your personality who you are the better off you are because they're looking for a good person as much as they are looking for a good broadcaster yeah did you have an inspiration growing up like anybody that you always listen to I mean obviously you would have had your Chick Hearns and your other people right growing up California there were definitely broadcasters who impacted my style and and had an influence on me none other than John Miller who you're probably familiar with if you watch baseball because he was ESPN Sunday Night Baseball's broadcaster with Joe Morgan for almost two decades if not okay for sure yeah and John Miller was the Giants radio announcer and when I was growing up and my dad and I had season tickets to the Giants still still up season tickets of the Giants and we would go to the ballpark and we'd both have a headset and I would listen to John Miller and Dave Fleming call games and he was so enthusiastic and just you could tell that his passion for broadcasting and being at the ballpark and baseball came off in every word that he said every single day it was so infectious and that was the same passion that I knew that I had going back to the day that I got hurt and it really consolidated in my mind I want people to feel that same passion and I can feel it from John Miller and if I can give that off to fans hopefully they're getting something out of this experience yeah one of my favorite I mean I'm a hockey guy so like Doc Emmerich has always been one of my favorite play my favorite play is guys. I grew up with Harry Callas right I mean in Philadelphia in the Phillies Harry Callas was just amazing Harry Callas I love love that voice it's how they hear home run Michael Jack Smith yeah we used to practice that all the time I mean you'll never I bet you'll never forget that World Series in 08 never and and I don't know if you knew he passed in his chair smoking a cigarette before the next season started yeah I was like the first I think was opening day I think was opening day he was just sitting he slumped over in his chair in the broadcaster that's Wow I didn't know that's the way to go right yeah it's pretty interesting so yeah I don't have much success what's that Phillies are not a good baseball they have the most losses of any sports organization in the in the world I think they they've had some they've had some lean years love their announcer now Tom McCarthy does a great job yeah McCarthy he doesn't he does stuff for CBS now too so he doesn't have a job but there's there's so many good ones so many good ones out there and awesome well I mean you it's 30 30 spots right in the NBA so you're one of 30 you've got 30 TV broadcasters in the NBA 30 radio broadcasters in the NBA then you got 30 TV broadcasters in Major League Baseball and 30 radio guys in Major League Baseball for sure the NFL uses nothing but network guys for TV but they do have their own individual radio guys that's true because we've got like Merle Reese with the Philadelphia Eagles. Merle's been there forever.

Merle's been there forever. Merle Reese with the Eagles report it's just good stuff it's always been fun we had like Gene Hart with hockey you know that was our big guy growing up with so you're a hockey guy huh yeah it's just it's I don't know it's Philadelphia is a very blue collared kind of town so just work hard play hard people. I'm telling you there is nothing like it's going to the Wells Fargo Center now but oh yeah I love going there because the fans are I mean they'll boo Santa Claus we've thrown snowballs at Santa Claus we cheered when Michael Irvin snapped his neck on the field it's pretty bad yeah it's not good I mean Philadelphia's got a history they're tough be a tough crowd but I love hearing the fans I love oh it's passion it's totally out of passion I mean it's it's out out of truly out of love I love the city of brotherly love nothing but love from the brotherly love yeah no kidding right oh I've been actually what's interesting I've got a funny story I I I'm not an Eagles fan because I went to an Eagles game against the Giants and I was at the vet which was the old toilet bowl stadium and the guy Seamus McCaffrey who was the judge in the jail the first ever jail in a stadium yes Philadelphia also became the state attorney general that's how popular he became just from being the veteran stadium judge but I went to a game a guy in a Rangers New York Rangers jacket walks into a bathroom five Eagle guys follow him in and the dude comes out crawling out bloody and I was scarred for life I was like eight or nine years old could just absolutely completely scarred for life that's really interesting I times back then I was at so we were in Philly last year on the day that they played the Seahawks in the wild card game okay and I remember going to dinner after the game downtown Philly at the Capitol Grill and I'm sitting there all right there on Broad Street right yeah oh yeah yeah and the post I think that the the hotel was in an old post office and I'm sitting at dinner and these two guys who were at the game and a little buzzed are sitting there having a hamburger at Capitol and they spent I I shit you not mark they spent two hours complaining about Doug Peterson and why the Eagles don't have a coach and why they can't ever do anything in the postseason and how the Eagles laid it on him and I'm like hey guys you know you had a backup quarterback in there you know you're Josh McCown they were not having it two hours two hours at dinner there they spent complaining about the the Eagles and losing to the Seahawks in the postseason so it's so crazy I mean look how they they won it sounds crazy because of the kovat feels like it extended time but the Eagles won the Super Bowl only three years ago and they're already got rid of quarterback and head coach I mean it's it seems very fickle doesn't it just a little bit well I I'm so appreciative for your time thank you so much for coming on or either is there anything else you wanted to share with us or anything you wanted to any other story you want to share before we call it a day my girlfriend who was just walking by on her way out of our apartment here to go to dinner with a friend she just sent me a text and says you have a wonderful voice me yes oh well thank you he said she said you can listen to all 97 other podcasts I will send her to your podcast she bets that your podcasts are fantastic she well that's very kind thank you very much and obviously you have that nice kind of booming that voice that just carries as well and it's definitely a broadcast voice for sure so that's it mark we're done what I well hey unless you want to share something else you I always have an open invite if you ever want to come on again if you I have two podcasts this one's a little bit more serious not conscious talks about you know inspirational stories and and things like that loved your story thank you so much for sharing my other ones called beer googles and it's kind of a joke on beer goggles for sure where we just get drunk and look up random stuff on the internet so it's like the same thing except for we find internet stories appealing instead of women so that's always fun so if there's ever a topic or something comes up and you want to just have fun with it you're welcome to come on any time wait I feel like I just want to I'd like to see it what is the stuff that you guys put out there it's awful you know I've got a let me put it this way I've got a face for radio my friend I've got a face for podcast when you've got a file of good clips for laughs not for you tubing yes yeah my one of my favorite jokes during the kovat time was my my my impression of Tom Hanks can I hear remember when he was the first person that got infected kind of it was really bad I do really bad jokes that's me but we have fun with it so every movie that Tom Hanks is in he gets abandoned or it's crazy right yeah so well thank you Chris so much for coming on I'm so grateful if there's ever anything that you or your team or anybody want to share or something I'm here to help the world so if there's something that you think you can share with someone that can inspire people or any of your teammates or anybody you know in the organization I you know I'm happy I'm here to help so fantastic be happy to promote I appreciate that thank you and thank you for having me on and hopefully people find it somewhat interesting and if if anybody has any questions hit me up go Oklahoma City go Oklahoma City for next year of course next year meet up we need to get a good draft absolutely yes just get that lottery pick that's we good to go it's what we're eyeing but thank you thank you so much mark for having me on I really enjoyed it Chris thank you again once again everybody this has been an episode of knocked conscious please subscribe follow rate review we'd love to hear from you if there's anything you know you had you have some feedback for Chris any draft picks you need him to tell the team to pick feel free to send it to me and I'll be happy to forward to him Chris thank you again so much until next time look forward to it until next time have a great day thanks you too