Dan Dickau's thoughts on if Gonzaga went independent
Former All-American Dan Dickau gives his thoughts on what it would like like if the Zags went independent and more on this week's mailbag episode of the Gonzaga Nation podcast.
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00:00 (upbeat music)
00:02 - Hey everybody, it's Christian Pedersen
00:03 joined by Dan Dickow,
00:05 back for another Gonzaga Nation podcast.
00:06 Thank you very much for everyone
00:07 for tuning into Mailbag Edition.
00:09 That's where we take your questions,
00:12 give them to Dan,
00:13 see what comes out of that beautiful basketball brain
00:15 of his just untold amounts of knowledge and wisdom
00:18 coming out of this guy every single week.
00:20 Dan, let's go to the first question.
00:22 And we've touched about this
00:24 on a couple of other podcasts recently
00:27 that everyone should always go check out.
00:29 But one of the people wanna know specifically,
00:30 like what does the first week or two of school
00:34 look like for these guys?
00:35 Are they already practicing?
00:36 Is it just meetings?
00:38 Are basketball players treated like conquering heroes
00:41 when they arrive on campus?
00:43 Are you guys the center of attention
00:44 'cause there's no football team?
00:45 People just wanna know what the start of school
00:46 is like for the players.
00:47 - It might be different now,
00:48 but when I was at Gonzaga,
00:51 I would extend and stretch out my summer
00:53 as long as possible.
00:54 If we had our first meeting, for example,
00:56 say on Monday, class starts on Tuesday for the year,
01:01 I would drive up from the Portland area late Saturday,
01:05 early Sunday, and be back down there
01:09 as long as I possibly could.
01:10 But typically, with the fact that most of these guys
01:14 stay in summer school throughout the year,
01:17 a lot of them just have kept their apartments
01:19 or dorms almost throughout the year.
01:22 So I can't really speak on exactly how that works now,
01:26 but the first week or so of the school year
01:30 is very important for a couple of different reasons.
01:32 You're gonna have your first team meeting.
01:35 And this one, this year I would imagine
01:37 is a little bit different just because Coach Few
01:40 is off with Team USA at the FIBA World Cup
01:43 as an assistant coach.
01:45 But that first team meeting is always very important.
01:48 Whether you're a freshman, whether you're a senior,
01:51 you're slotted in as a starter,
01:54 whether you're a possible walk-on,
01:56 it's an important meeting in the fact that
01:58 a lot of times it can really set the tone for the season.
02:04 Does the coach come in, command everyone's attention,
02:09 demand eye contact?
02:11 Does he have a message that is,
02:14 hey, this is what we do, this is how we do it,
02:17 these are the things that we're gonna be great at,
02:19 we're gonna set the tone in regards to our expectations
02:22 in the classroom, how you handle yourself on campus,
02:25 how you handle yourself off campus
02:27 when you're just a regular college-age student
02:29 doing fun things.
02:31 This is how we're gonna handle ourselves
02:32 when we have individual workouts, team practices.
02:35 If we say practice is at two, guess what?
02:38 That probably means it's really 145
02:40 when you need to be there ready to go.
02:42 All those things typically kind of get mentioned
02:45 in that first practice, or excuse me, that first meeting.
02:48 And so, like I said, it can really set the tone
02:51 moving forward for the entire year.
02:53 And then if you look at the entire first week,
02:56 it's an exciting time, it's a stressful time,
02:59 and it's one of those things
03:00 where you have that typical meeting,
03:02 you get your first opportunity to get in your locker
03:05 with all your new gear.
03:07 So years ago, the Gonzaga equipment gear handout was this.
03:12 Two pairs of shorts, like two shirts,
03:16 a pair of running shoes and a pair of basketball shoes
03:19 for the fall, that was it.
03:20 And then when you got to the regular season practice started
03:23 you get like two pairs of shorts, two reversibles,
03:27 team issued sweats, and that was about it
03:30 until maybe you got an extra pair
03:33 when it looked like you were making the NCAA tournament.
03:35 These days, because Nike Elite has Gonzaga
03:39 under their umbrella, and they're one of the true
03:41 blue bloods of gear, these guys' lockers
03:44 is like overflowing with stuff.
03:47 So the amount of shoes and the amount of the gear
03:49 these guys get really, it doesn't necessarily rival
03:53 an NBA locker room because what NBA guys get is insane,
03:58 but it's pretty darn close.
04:00 So that's an important one in a guy's eyes,
04:03 but then you also have your initial first meetings
04:05 with your professors, you go to class.
04:09 If you need to change your classes
04:12 to better fit your curriculum
04:15 of what you need for your degree,
04:17 the first week is the week you need to do it to get changed.
04:20 And then meeting with any tutors
04:22 that you might be having throughout the year
04:24 to set up kind of a set routine and schedule of things
04:28 is something that you'll do as well.
04:30 And then on the basketball and then the weight room side,
04:33 that's the easiest part to be honest with you.
04:35 Guys have already been doing that throughout the summer.
04:38 The returners have had a season or two or three
04:40 of doing it already with the staff.
04:42 So lots of things happen during this first week or so.
04:47 And because Gonzaga has such a extended support staff
04:52 of academic advisors, tutors,
04:54 and athletic department supports them,
04:57 they make things as easy as possible on them as possible.
05:00 - You mentioned guys holding onto dorms and/or apartments,
05:03 and that made me wonder,
05:04 where did you live first year on Gonzaga?
05:07 And is there a statue or plaque erected at that location
05:11 to here is where Gonzaga legend Dan Dekau lived?
05:13 - Wow, no.
05:15 So my right-tree year, Richie Fromm and I lived together.
05:18 We were friends growing up down in the Vancouver area.
05:21 And obviously he was a big reason,
05:23 a big part of why I transferred to Gonzaga.
05:25 So I transferred up and we had an apartment that we shared.
05:30 I wanna say they were called Corkery Apartments,
05:33 right there on Sharp.
05:35 - On Sharp, okay.
05:36 - Right there on Sharp.
05:38 For all the old Gonzaga fans that listen to this,
05:42 you will know the name of this house.
05:44 Younger people probably won't.
05:46 723 East Sharp was what was termed the basketball house.
05:50 Most guy, not most,
05:51 but a lot of guys on the basketball team lived there.
05:54 Mike Nilsen, Ryan Floyd, Matt Santangelo
05:56 lived there for a short bit.
05:58 Eric Edelstein, who is now an actor in Hollywood,
06:02 lived there.
06:03 It was a place where guys would just go get away
06:08 and be normal college students
06:09 and just hang out with teammates
06:10 that were going through the same things.
06:12 So 723 Sharp is memorialized
06:16 and ingrained in a lot of us, our heads,
06:20 as to be an important part of our college.
06:22 My second year, I lived for about a month off campus
06:26 in a house with Casey Calvary, Anthony Reason,
06:29 and a couple of Casey's high school buddies.
06:31 But shortly thereafter, I moved out to Dusseau Apartments
06:36 and Jay Shirell moved into the house.
06:39 I moved in with Mario Kasun,
06:41 who was never able to be eligible from the NCAA.
06:46 He was the Croatian who was,
06:47 would have been a game changer for Gonzaga.
06:50 Played in the NBA for a number of years,
06:52 spent two years in Spokane trying to get eligible.
06:55 The NCAA never deemed him eligible.
06:58 So we were roommates that year.
07:00 And then my final year, Richard Fox and Kyle Bankhead and I,
07:04 we were lucky enough to be in brand new apartments
07:06 right off of Sharp.
07:07 Birch, I know that it was an undercover casino really,
07:13 because Kyle and Richard and I,
07:15 probably four or five nights a week,
07:17 we had a poker game going.
07:18 We would have random show up at our door,
07:20 knocking on the door like,
07:22 "Hey, is there a poker game going?"
07:23 We're like, "Who are you?
07:24 We don't know you, get out of here."
07:26 - Not where I intended for that question to wind up,
07:30 but possibly the best revelation
07:31 that we have had all summer long
07:33 is that Dan Dickow could have taken
07:34 a drastic career change as a casino pit boss.
07:39 Dan, someone wrote in wanting to know more
07:40 about what Nolan Hickman has been up to
07:42 in terms of his charitable efforts this summer.
07:44 You talked about that a little bit,
07:46 week or two ago on the podcast.
07:48 Have any more details you can share with us?
07:50 - Yeah, great question.
07:51 You know, it goes to show a little bit
07:54 about the type of players and people
07:57 that Gonzaga recruits and wants to be a part of the program.
08:00 Nolan Hickman has a heart to help others
08:03 and be involved in the communities that he's living in.
08:07 And during his time in Spokane,
08:10 he's done a couple of different clinics at Shoot360,
08:13 the gym that I own.
08:14 In the summers, when he goes back to Seattle,
08:19 he does his, the Give Back Foundation Clinic.
08:22 Five years now in a row,
08:25 he's done a clinic for kids in Seattle.
08:28 And that's impressive for a young man like that
08:30 as a sophomore in high school,
08:32 because if you look at it, if it's year five,
08:34 he would have had to start a foundation
08:36 either as a sophomore or junior
08:38 and get this going if it's year five.
08:39 So he, this past weekend,
08:42 he did his big clinic over in the Seattle area.
08:45 Ben Gregg and Ryan Nemhart were there helping him out.
08:50 If you follow him or the Give Back Foundation
08:52 on social media, mostly Instagram,
08:55 you'll see a lot of good video and good posts
08:58 about some of the things that they were doing
09:00 at that clinic.
09:01 Absolutely love to hear that.
09:02 Hopefully we can get him on the pod this season
09:05 to talk a little bit more about that.
09:07 If not, if not just that and not even basketball,
09:10 'cause I'm sure he'd be really passionate
09:12 about sharing some of those stories.
09:13 Last one, and this wasn't even actually a question.
09:16 This was someone that,
09:17 this was a comment left in the Instagram comments
09:20 that I kind of just want to pose to you as a question.
09:23 And that is, with all of the conference realignment stuff,
09:27 Gonzaga just should go independent.
09:30 Make just be plant mercenaries
09:32 for highest paid possible games,
09:35 the way that kind of like a Notre Dame has done
09:38 for football.
09:38 You know what's funny is you bring up that question.
09:42 Obviously we've talked about alignment, realignment a lot
09:45 over the last couple of weeks.
09:48 The Mountain West is actually meeting with Oregon State.
09:51 I believe it's today or tomorrow about joining their league.
09:55 So is the Pac-12 completely done now?
09:58 Because I would imagine if they're meeting,
10:01 there's some legs to that idea.
10:03 And if Oregon State goes, what about Washington State?
10:05 Where would that leave Cal and Stanford?
10:07 But back to your point in your initial question
10:09 about Gonzaga being independent.
10:11 This is a question, this is a comment,
10:13 this is an idea that I've actually talked through
10:16 with a number of people on a number of different occasions.
10:20 It makes a ton of sense because Gonzaga is an outlier
10:25 in regards to how good they are.
10:27 They're an outlier in regards to the branding
10:30 they are nationally as strictly a basketball school.
10:33 There's no football attached to it.
10:35 When you look at most schools and where they go
10:38 based on realignment in conference,
10:40 it's because of football.
10:42 It's the strength of their football team.
10:44 It's the amount of sheer money that can be generated
10:48 by the league and the TV deals from their football team
10:52 where that's not the case with Gonzaga.
10:54 So it is an interesting idea.
10:57 The only problem that I see is right now you look at,
11:00 take for example, you have a 30 game slate
11:03 before you get to the postseason.
11:05 Now you give or take one or two games here or there.
11:08 When you have a conference that you're a part of,
11:11 you already have a easy 16 to 18 games
11:15 already slated for you,
11:17 which is what Gonzaga has in the WCC.
11:20 So you essentially, you have to search out
11:22 and figure out how to get 14-ish non-conference games,
11:26 whether they're one-offs, where you buy the game.
11:30 Like for example, Yale's coming to Spokane this year.
11:32 That's a buy game.
11:33 They pay Yale X amount of money,
11:35 help cover Yale's costs to get out there,
11:37 to travel, play the game.
11:38 And then Yale makes a little bit of money to pocket
11:41 and put back in their athletic department
11:43 and fund their basketball program.
11:45 Then you've got the made for TV games.
11:47 That would be, I would imagine,
11:48 that's like the San Diego State games
11:50 where both teams I would imagine
11:52 make a little bit of money off of it.
11:53 Then you've got your MTEs, your multi-team events,
11:58 your Maui Classic, your Atlantis tournament
12:00 that Gonzaga was just announced
12:02 that they're gonna be in next year.
12:04 You have those.
12:04 So typically you're gonna have about 14 games
12:06 that are filled with those.
12:08 That's 30 games you gotta come up with.
12:10 If you're an independent
12:12 and you don't have those 16 games,
12:14 18 games with your conference
12:16 that are just automatically filled up by the league,
12:20 how do you fill those up?
12:21 And where do you go to fill those up?
12:23 - It becomes you have to do
12:24 what they're doing with Kentucky right now,
12:26 later in the season,
12:27 where Kentucky is able to find a window
12:29 in their own league play to be like,
12:30 "All right, we'll play you, Gonzaga."
12:33 But to do, like you said,
12:34 to do that spread out over 14 games
12:37 seems logistically like you're doing one of two things.
12:41 You're either playing, like you said,
12:43 nothing but made for TV events,
12:44 and you are now submitting Gonzaga to the ultimate gauntlet
12:47 and probably not gonna have the same win-loss results.
12:51 You might still get good seedings,
12:52 but it's gonna be a little rockier
12:53 and it's gonna be a little tougher
12:54 'cause you're constantly playing the best.
12:56 Or you're just creating a logistical nightmare
12:58 where they've gotta start playing like four games a week
13:01 early in the season,
13:02 and then one game a week later.
13:03 And it seems to fall apart on merit that you just,
13:08 like you said, you just can't quite find enough games.
13:10 - Well, it's what you said.
13:12 It's the scheduling logistical nightmare of doing it.
13:15 You're exactly right.
13:16 You might have a stretch
13:17 during what would be deemed your conference schedule,
13:21 where you would have one game and maybe a 10-day stretch
13:24 because you can't find any opponents
13:26 that have openings in their schedules.
13:28 So it would be really difficult.
13:31 Football's different, and football's unique in the fact
13:34 that you physically can only play one game a week.
13:38 And you can even have a bye week
13:40 in that college football season
13:41 where you might play one game or three games in a month.
13:46 That isn't necessarily how every program does it,
13:49 but you could build that bye weekend if you want.
13:51 But the football schedules are done many times,
13:56 three, four, five, six, seven years in advance.
13:58 Basketball, you might have contracts
14:01 where it's gonna be a recurring series
14:04 for a three or four-year stretch, a six-year stretch,
14:07 for example, with Kentucky
14:09 that we're in the midst of right now.
14:11 But most of those games are scheduled in the summer months
14:16 where both teams have an idea
14:19 of what their roster might look like
14:20 and what challenges they might want.
14:23 And they probably have an idea
14:24 of what their budget looks like
14:26 if you're a team that is looking for bye games.
14:29 Like, "Hey, if I can go there and make 40 grand
14:32 "for my program, we gotta go do it."
14:34 So I think it's the logistics.
14:37 I think the thought process
14:39 or the thought idea behind it is unique.
14:41 There's nothing wrong with it.
14:43 I think it would be cool
14:45 if you could build your own schedule,
14:47 but I don't think it makes sense on the logistical side.
14:49 Plus, why would you leave the WCC
14:52 where there's an automatic bid
14:56 for the winner of the conference tournament
14:57 to get to the NCAA tournament
14:58 for the chance that we just have to absolutely
15:01 be selected as an at-large?
15:05 - Yeah, and I'll tell you why.
15:06 - Like you mentioned, what if they put a gauntlet
15:07 of a schedule together and you struggle?
15:10 - The absolute truth why is that
15:11 if you play that gauntlet schedule, you make a ton of money.
15:15 - You could.
15:16 - You play a ton of big teams, big TV.
15:18 You work with Apple to be like,
15:20 "Hey, let's do a Gonzaga streaming pack."
15:23 It just becomes a money thing.
15:25 You basically sell out the entirety,
15:27 integrity of Gonzaga's athletic program
15:29 for pushing all the chips in on basketball's
15:32 gonna make us back every dime of it, no matter what.
15:35 - Well, you mentioned Apple TV.
15:37 That's the interesting one 'cause the more I've read
15:41 over the last couple of weeks,
15:42 especially since the splintering of the PAC-12 is,
15:46 Apple is curious about getting into streaming sports.
15:52 And they've done it with, I believe, MLS soccer.
15:55 They've done a few one-offs here and there.
15:58 But when you think about it,
15:59 Apple has all the resources, all the technology,
16:02 but most importantly, they have more money than ABC,
16:06 CBS, NBC, ESPN, all these companies to go out
16:10 and buy the rights when they decide to push their chips
16:13 all in on college sports.
16:15 - The way that Gonzaga has done the,
16:18 or the way, I'm sorry,
16:19 the way that Apple+ has done the MLS
16:21 has been really, really interesting
16:23 because you can purchase overarching subscriptions
16:25 or you can do pay-per-view on singular games.
16:28 And the pay-per-view on singular games
16:29 is tied into the rest of your Apple stuff.
16:31 So it's not like you're signing in
16:33 with a new credit card or anything.
16:34 And you're like, "Oh, 99 cents to watch today's
16:37 Messy versus whoever on the MLS?"
16:40 But like, yeah, so like 99 cents to watch the four Gonzaga,
16:45 like you mentioned in a previous podcast,
16:47 they got that stretch of St. Mary's,
16:49 Portland, Kentucky, St. Mary's,
16:51 spend $4 to make sure you can have that on your phone,
16:55 wherever you're like,
16:56 it seems really enticing that you can convince
16:59 a lot of people to spare a little teeny bit of money,
17:02 but it overarchingly becomes a very profitable industry.
17:05 - Yeah, it's gonna be interesting to follow
17:07 because I think they're the next,
17:10 I don't know, I don't think you can call them
17:12 a media entity.
17:14 They're a tech company that has a media arm in them,
17:18 I guess is the way to describe it.
17:19 But I think they're gonna be active next
17:21 and they're gonna surprise some people
17:22 with what they come up with.
17:24 - I would say that tech company and media arm
17:26 are becoming this, like they just are hand in hand.
17:29 You see ESPN lays off a bunch of people.
17:31 We're not necessarily in an era where you know
17:33 who your team beat writer even is.
17:36 Like we're just in an era where you know how you get it
17:39 and the consumption company.
17:40 So absolutely think that Apple's getting in on that.
17:43 Thank you everyone for tuning in.
17:44 Dan, thank you for answering fan questions.
17:46 Everyone make sure you subscribe to us
17:48 by searching Gonzaga Nation,
17:49 wherever you get your podcasts.
17:50 Follow us on social media @FanNationZags.
17:53 Thank you everyone for tuning in.
17:54 We'll talk to you guys soon.
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