The B Team Podcast
Talking all things Business, Bentonville, and Bourbon. Hosted by Josh Saffran, Matt Marrs, and Rob Nelson. New episodes every Thursday!
The B Team Podcast
Ep. 51 - Hosting, Fundraising & the Chaos of Live Events with Jon Williams - Part 2
Ever wondered how a charity event manages to raise $100,000? Join us, along with our permanent guest Rob Nelson, as we unravel the meticulous planning and teamwork that turned this ambitious goal into a reality in Part 2 of our conversation with Jon Williams. From navigating the nuances of event timing to avoid clashes with popular local happenings, to the thrill of hosting dinners that support pancreatic cancer and veterans, our journey is filled with insights and aspirations. We even share our dream of involving notable figures like Jon Williams to further amplify our efforts—because who wouldn't want to take their fundraising initiatives to the next level?
Picture this: a wedding in Arkansas with a surprise announcement so big it could overshadow even the wedding cake! That's exactly what happened when John Calipari was announced as the Razorbacks' new head coach, amidst a weekend that also featured a stunning eclipse. Personal tales about the quirks of running in certain neighborhoods and the decision to switch from coffee to green tea provide a humorous backdrop to these memorable moments. Alongside the laughs, we explore lifestyle changes and the comedic side of health conversations that only true camaraderie can bring to light.
Our adventures don't stop there. Dive headfirst into the world of home renovation fantasies and reality TV close-calls, as we recount nearly appearing on "Fixer to Fabulous" and the enduring charm of Northwest Arkansas. The antics continue with nostalgic throwbacks to the wild events of Shadow Lake, complete with foam float fests and dad bod contests. Finally, we unveil "Gentsgiving," our initiative to foster community spirit and engagement. From local sports updates to lively tales from our past, this episode promises laughter, inspiration, and a celebration of community.
Welcome to the B-Team Podcast. I am your host, josh Safran, with my co-host, pat Morris and our permanent guest, rob Nelson. We're here every week to talk to you about all things Bentonville, bourbon and business the B-Team Podcast. Be here. Welcome to the B-Team Podcast. I'm your host, josh Safran, with our co-host.
Speaker 2:Matt Mars and our permanent guest. Rob Nelson. I'm still here, 2025, here we go. Well, world, this is John Williams. So, now that we're talking about him speaking at charity events, why has he not come to the bourbon event? Well, we're going gonna get into that.
Speaker 1:I don't think he knows our event exists.
Speaker 3:I'm I mean he goes to about it he goes to like he's at american heart association.
Speaker 2:I know I am, josh doesn't want to give up the limelight oh, I would give it up.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because this is who we have to listen to mc.
Speaker 2:So I do, and I mean just what you've heard in the last 30 minutes you you know, it's a train wreck, not a train wreck.
Speaker 1:I would happily go to John, but we're not big enough to give you?
Speaker 2:He's not big enough we raised over $100,000.
Speaker 3:We did, you hit six figures on your fundraiser? We did. Yeah, that's a neighborhood. We did.
Speaker 1:It's a cool event. I mean you get 1,000 people in the room at Mercy Ball and Kiss a Pig and these things we do suits and sneakers all the big ones that you're involved with. We created a 501c3, and Matt and his brother and Rob and myself and my wife and it's eight allocated bourbon steak and shrimp dinner. It's like 125 people. I mean, you're talking about bourbons that you can't really get. You had me at steak and shrimp dinner it's fantastic and it's good.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Well the thing, here's the thing.
Speaker 1:November 6th.
Speaker 3:Okay, so the thing that precludes me from doing a lot of events are Razorback games, and so is there a competing Razorback game that day.
Speaker 1:November 6th next year it's a Thursday. Well, November 6th next year it's a Thursday. Well, we don't know next year's schedule yet.
Speaker 3:November we're so far out Because I'll go ahead and give you the fact that this year, on the day that Tennessee came to Razorback Stadium, the Kiss a Pig Gala thought they should have their gala on not just the day of, but on a night game where Tennessee was a Razorback stadium and on the same day that Jewel and Melissa Etheridge were at the AMP. So you had all three events happening on the same exact day. It's the first time in 19 years I have not emceed the Kiss of Big Gala because I told them I go, what are you doing? Like the Razorbacks were playing Tennessee, but they should plan this out further in advance.
Speaker 3:As you know, Correct, and I was baffled about that, to put it lightly. And so what usually precludes me from doing anything or committing to any event is whether it conflicts with a Razorback game. If it doesn't, then there's a really high chance I can do it. And so if November 6th doesn't have any Razorback things, I have to MC PA or do Hogtown or whatever. I'd be delighted, I would happily turn over. I'm looking at this camera right here. November 6th, I'm in.
Speaker 2:if there's no Razorback game, it's in Little Flock.
Speaker 3:It's in a barn. It's super cool. You couldn't drag me away from this now, little, and so we have so you know little flock yeah, do I so like who doesn't?
Speaker 2:so we had uh.
Speaker 1:So we had tom pagnazzi and clint brannum and and uh, blakeman had a table and hubbard was there and the whole mars family was out there nice. Dave created uh built a table that we auctioned off oh my goodness, I mean, it was and and half the proceeds go to pancreatic cancer.
Speaker 2:Well, and to beat Lisa pretty much. Well, that's from Lisa, yeah.
Speaker 1:Well, the lady from Sazerac, Lisa Dumaine-Boris, who shout out.
Speaker 2:She's a good friend, so she gets all this allocated burden for us.
Speaker 1:So half of it goes to pancreatic cancer. Her dad went up and spoke he's a survivor and half goes to a veterans charity. And spoke he's a survivor. Half goes to a veterans charity Dave, Matt, Rob, myself, my wife. $100,000 for 120 people in one night.
Speaker 3:Dude, that is some ROI. That's what that is. If I can be there and there's no Razorback thing, I have to do Kendall and I will be there.
Speaker 1:I get to sit at your table then and hang out. I don't have to be up on stage. That's amazing.
Speaker 3:I'd be honored Because.
Speaker 1:I try to emulate what you do. That's enough. But I don't do, I don't. That's a drop the mic moment for you. Stop that.
Speaker 2:It's not not as good. Josh will probably give you some cue cards to try to keep you up.
Speaker 3:I need more of the cue cards. People think I've had events where I have shown up and you know they're obviously they're raising money. There's a band, there's all these auction items, there's speakers, there's videos or things, and I'll show up and they'll be like oh yeah, we like, we wrote like an outline and you just ad lib and you just wing it and I go wing it. You're, wait a minute, you're trying to raise money. I need to know the mission, the stats, I need to know all that stuff and the best events are the ones that have the best scripts and they're the ones that lead the least to chance. Now, don't get me wrong, because we ad lib at certain points, but, like, if you expected me just to show up and start doing, you know, a quick five, I can write the scripts.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's what I'm worried about. No, seriously, I used to write scripts.
Speaker 3:I used to write scripts for a room. Well, you're in For sure I can script the whole thing. And then there's like the Burlesworth Awards, where there's not a comma, that is not scripted. I mean it is teleprompter and it is a televised thing and those things are. That's a high wire act when I started getting to do the Burlesworth trophy.
Speaker 2:But you want a script where you know where you're going with it, and then you throw some abalone in it.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, and that way it's like jazz a little bit, where you can kind of free flow, but their script is airtight and those events are the best.
Speaker 1:Do you have a favorite event? I mean, or you would rather not say.
Speaker 3:You'd rather not say From a standpoint of like nonprofits.
Speaker 1:Something that tells you your heartstrings, yeah, something that you're like I really can't miss this one. Well, I'll say this.
Speaker 3:They just recently changed their brand. They're not JDRF anymore, but I was the founding board president of JDRF, because my son's mom Juvenile diabetes.
Speaker 3:Because my son's mother is a type 1 diabetic, has been since 10. To say it was a difficult birth is a vast understatement. He was in NIC unit for two weeks. He was born four days before 9-11. He was born on a Friday and then the world went to hell Tuesday.
Speaker 3:There was a lot to it. We had to go scrubbing and the whole thing, and so that was something very, very important to me was JDRF, and that's what Kiss a Pig is. It's for diabetes also. So I care very much about the diabetes. But you know everyone, all these events, especially yours, pancreatic cancer these are very important to the people who found them, like you, and my people who found them like you and, um, my, I've got family right now, uh, who have stage four cancer, and so those are the ones that you really, you really give a damn about and uh. But as far as an event standpoint right now I am a little biased towards suits and sneakers um, I miss moss and danielle, uh, from a from a standpoint of that event, because they poured their heart and soul into that and that is something that's going to be tough to replicate for those guys and we'll see how it goes moving forward, I think it'll be fine.
Speaker 1:Well, we went this year. I couldn't be there, and the year before was the one with the, with Muss and the fashion show.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah yeah, I have seen that one, amazing yeah.
Speaker 1:This year was good. I mean, it was different. I mean you weren't there, Muss wasn't there.
Speaker 3:Allison, wise and Deke did it yeah.
Speaker 1:And.
Speaker 3:Allison Wise and I did it the year before that and what they tried to do is they tried to bring in and they brought in all the coaches, and Calipari came in a little bit also, and I do love that event. I also love Kiss Pig. Obviously that's become so big that it's beyond an event. It's like 10 mini events under one event. Have they asked Dave or anyone with you guys to meet.
Speaker 2:I don't know if they've ever done that. Do you know what they do?
Speaker 3:by the way they go and they have these people. It's like large business, small business, which basically means Walmart, sam's Club and then the rest of the world try and raise money and they have their own campaigns and they try to outdo each other, and it's a brilliant business model for a nonprofit to do, and they raise an absolutely staggering amount of money every year. They just keep raising the stakes and so that's another way to do it, but I've cut way back. I used to do like 15 nonprofit events a year. I do like four now.
Speaker 2:I don't know when you ever sleep. Well, I was going to ask you how do you manage your calendar?
Speaker 3:So I actually have photos on my phone that I can send you and, if you want to find a way to like, put them on your podcast. I took a photo because I'm a hundred years old. I actually still use a like a one of those calendars, a desk calendar.
Speaker 1:You want to send me available Friday, right, and you send me a screenshot and I said look at that. I got a photo Friday.
Speaker 3:I'm like LSU women Thursday. Do women Thursday? And then I don't have anything until the next week, and so my January through May is a joke. It is men's basketball, women's basketball and baseball all competing, and my March and April are laughable. I've got like 20 games each month, on top of me doing my show and my sales and all that, and so I should send you a photo of what my schedule looks like.
Speaker 1:Because this week I'm like I don't know what he's doing, but he's not working all week.
Speaker 3:I have to color code it so I can tell where I have to be, when and what games and what dates and what times.
Speaker 1:Send me one. We'll put it up on the podcast. Oh, I'll do it.
Speaker 2:It's something else, because I think no one realizes and I know my brother and Jenny deal with it too. They don't realize, like they just see your show or listen to your show.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:Or see Dave and Jenny's show, but then they don't realize. Well, it goes into it, you never shut off, like you do that, but then you get on the phone and you're trying to get sponsors, yeah, and then you're going to the Razorback game, and, and then you're going to the Razorback game and a lot of people think you just show up and you do it, and then you go back to your life, there is no stopping Every day.
Speaker 3:And that's what's funny. Now that I have a child who is no longer a child, he's a man, he's grown up, he's gone. Now it's just my wife and I, and so you know, it's going to get to the point where I mean, for example, last night I didn't get home until 1020. And I went to work that morning, did a morning show and then I was gone all day and newlywed.
Speaker 1:I mean, you want to spend time with your wife, right, right, right, right. You got married six months ago, right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we got married last April 7th, the day before the eclipse. So we got married at George's Majestic Lounge and we and then that night Calipari got hired oh, wow, I will never forget that. I'm up on stage, we did the whole thing and it's nighttime and, by the way, thank God, the Ole Miss baseball series was Thursday through Saturday and then we got married Sunday. I was worried I was going to miss that game, but thank God they didn't do that and so that night I danced with my to LA four days ago and they're bringing up names of people that you're like are you kidding me? This guy? Oh, we're dead. And so the wedding's happening and everyone's just checking their phones because at that point they're like are we going to get somebody? The next day, the Final Four game is is happening and all of a sudden it breaks and cordy mims walks up to me and she goes do you want the best wedding present I could possibly give you? And I go, absolutely, she goes.
Speaker 1:We just hired john calipari for the razorbacks and she says wait, I thought you were giving me a thousand dollars cash. That's better than a thousand dollars cash.
Speaker 3:Yeah, given the names that were being discussed for that coach um and so when she says, like john calipari is gonna be named the head coach, uh, after the finals tomorrow. And I went, I can't say what I said. I was like, come on. And she's like you'll see. And sure enough, it broke, and that was the night of my wedding. How cool. And then the next day was the eclipse. So I had a bunch of friends that came in for my wedding and they came in for my wedding and they really came in for the eclipse.
Speaker 1:Because Arkansas was a great place to see the eclipse. My brother lives in Seattle and he brought his daughter.
Speaker 3:I go wow, that's so nice, he brought his daughter to my wedding. He goes don't get it twisted, I came for the eclipse. Let's not fool ourselves and I have friends from Colorado. All of them came in for the wedding and they really came after the eclipse.
Speaker 1:So everybody came to see you in Kendall. It was beautiful.
Speaker 3:It was awesome and it was at George's Shout out to Brian and Day Crown, did you?
Speaker 1:have any time at the wedding.
Speaker 2:No wedding, no, but like george's is an amazing yeah that's where.
Speaker 3:When we lived in fayetteville, that was the place to go. And I'm going to give a shout out to a couple, the people who planned our wedding also lauren, uh, who did an incredible job planning our wedding, and I gotta be honest, if they made it look like an absolute dream leah and jen, with epic events shout out again. Um, they transformed george's majestic into something that you Normally I'm there seeing the Nace Brothers or something, or Ultra Suede or something like that. They made that thing look like an incredible wedding.
Speaker 1:You can tell you do this for a living, because he's got all the shout outs, he's got all this blood, which is good, it's perfect. That's what it's about.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean, I've been writing these names. We can call these people, get them on the podcast. Yeah, george's Majestic, I have heard of them. Yeah, but we got there and it was a magical day.
Speaker 1:It was great. I do want to ask you you do run as well. No, I run.
Speaker 3:And I'll tell you how.
Speaker 1:I know, oh, I want to hear this. I was coming down, it's a little creepy.
Speaker 2:It's northwest Arkansas right.
Speaker 1:So I was driving past Lowe's Dillon and Fayetteville and I made that right turn to come down Sounds a little stalker and I'm driving down the hill there and I see you running up the hill. That was you. No, when was this? This was a week and a half ago. That was not me.
Speaker 2:All right, yeah, next no no, no no, it's like hold on a real minute, you don't run in favor, I would tell you if I had.
Speaker 3:The problem is I live in Johnson and I don't know how many people try to be pedestrians in Johnson.
Speaker 2:Johnson needs to do a little work on their sidewalks.
Speaker 3:And when I say work on their sidewalks, I mean have them. They don't have sidewalks in half their town.
Speaker 1:There must have been another handsome guy with gray hair down there. I was going to say I was very confused.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there may be two of them out. There Could be, but you do run.
Speaker 1:Not as much as I'd like, okay. I'm trying to be tactful and let you down gently, because you're in much better shape than the three of us. Well, what are you doing?
Speaker 3:I don't eat because that out of my diet. And it's amazing what happens when you cut out the 36 grams of sugar per serving soda. It just melts off of you Three times a day Amazing. I mean I was look, shout out Sonic, I would have root 44s way too often of Dr Pepper. So good, you just can't. You can't do that, especially late in the day. You're just you can't do that.
Speaker 2:I've switched to green tea. Oh really, wait a second, what? Yeah, I'm a green tea drinker now.
Speaker 1:Did you know this? No, yeah, since when I told him this morning, yeah, I told him this morning, no more coffee and I want green tea.
Speaker 3:So, as of today, as of today, Is this like a New Year's resolution type thing? No, no.
Speaker 2:I stopped for one other day. I'm like, man, this is great and super healthy for you and I'll probably go get one right after this.
Speaker 3:Wow.
Speaker 2:This is breaking news. This is bigger than you being here, john Now do you go somewhere for the tea? I stopped at Seven Brew. Shout out to Seven Brew.
Speaker 3:So Seven Brew makes tea. Shout out to Seven Brew.
Speaker 2:It was hot as hell. I burnt the crap out of my mouth, so be careful. But yeah, it was great. No sugar, no creamer, no nothing. I was like man Straight tea. Yeah, I'm tired of coffee, I'm ready for green tea.
Speaker 1:Man, that explains why you're a little antsy.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm ready to go. Is that good energy?
Speaker 3:Okay, what would you drink before the tea? Coffee, okay, yeah. What's the difference Other than the taste? Yeah, it just seems a little cleaner. Do you feel like the caffeine is similar? I think it's stronger.
Speaker 1:I can tell In the green tea.
Speaker 3:I got to be honest.
Speaker 2:So is the green? Is it better for you than coffee? Oh, 100%. A lot of antioxidants in green tea. Sorry not to digress.
Speaker 3:You health, not you. This is great.
Speaker 1:Well, when we had Mark Hufford on from Chick-fil-A and we asked, we asked we asked.
Speaker 3:Shout out to Mark Hufford.
Speaker 1:We said Bobby, what do you eat? He goes well, I'm feeling healthy. I'll eat the chicken tenders, the strips, the strips, and Mark, who's very fit.
Speaker 2:He's like well, you know, you probably should eat the salad, or the chicken noodle soup.
Speaker 1:He went from the sandwich with the bread to the fried strips, thinking he was doing himself a solid, getting rid of those carbs.
Speaker 2:It's probably the second worst thing on the menu, right after the chicken sandwich.
Speaker 3:So he's sandwich. He's a health nut. I got to be honest. Their grill's pretty good. Their grilled chicken's not bad. Have you had this grilled?
Speaker 2:before he tried to steer Rob towards the grilled or the soup, I was like that's probably better off than the fried.
Speaker 1:I did stop there.
Speaker 2:Maybe a few weeks ago, not to come off subject, I ordered the chicken noodle soup and I ended up with some tortilla soup. Oh, that's good too, but I don't think it was as good for you because there's a lot of stuff in there. I was like well, they probably were like that guy didn't order cheese.
Speaker 3:Let me get him a tortilla.
Speaker 2:I threw a couple extra bags of tortilla chips in there. Oh, I put them all in there too. I was like, well, maybe next time.
Speaker 1:And it wasn't the next time I haven't done that.
Speaker 2:He's like. You know it's the thought that counts sometimes. You know it's not. You know, sometimes you don't have to do everything if you think about it.
Speaker 3:I'll take some more, by the way, makers yeah.
Speaker 1:I love it. You and I are about similar. This is our second pour already. Well, we've been letting you talk.
Speaker 2:This is kind of an interview. Josh and I are trying to decide if we need to bring on a fourth person. Well, actually, we are negotiating our 2025 contracts right now for host, co-host and permanent guest.
Speaker 3:Do you know what I now need to tell you? We bought our house in April, let me think 22. I got an email from you guys because we live in Johnson and I didn't realize that. Do you guys get to do homes in Fayetteville?
Speaker 2:Yeah, sometimes.
Speaker 3:Sometimes very rarely, but normally Benton.
Speaker 2:County, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:So we got an email from a girl. I think her name is Michelle, okay, and she goes hello, I'm Michelle with Fixer Fabulous, and the whole email is just about your house looks like a candidate, which is a kind way of saying your house is a piece of shit.
Speaker 3:Your house is a fixer-upper. But, to be fair, we bought this house and I mean they just dropped the crayon box. As far as paint, they just purple room posted, yellow room, everything. And it was a catastrophe. And so we knew when we bought this house we're going to have to fix it up ourselves and no sooner than we bought it, within two weeks, painted everything, we got wood floors, we got carpet and everything. And then we got the email about going on, fix it or Fabulous, like.
Speaker 3:Well, we kind of already did all this stuff, and had we not, I'm telling you we would have thought about that, and that was the work, you guys do on that show is phenomenal and I mean we're fans of it and when Jack got to work on it we were like stoked. That was amazing and I was like man, I'm so mad.
Speaker 1:We made our house nice because we got Dave and Jenny both on and these guys are family so they're super biased and I've gotten to meet them a little bit and what you see off camera is what you see on camera. They're just good people.
Speaker 3:You can totally tell. I mean, you can just totally see that these are people you're like. I would trust these people in my house.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's like you To have a national TV show in Northwest Arkansas, and I mean the same with what you've done in Northwest Arkansas. You have stayed here and I'm sure you could have left many times.
Speaker 3:I could have went back home a couple times yeah and you could probably be making more money.
Speaker 2:But your son look where he got to grow up and you look at all those other things. You can't pay the price on that stuff.
Speaker 3:And that's true and it's a credit to them and to you guys that you guys have created this incredible brand and this incredible show and an economy. I mean, my son was a part of that economy. He worked on the show and I know what you guys do right there and with everything and it's just. It was really cool and I just for just now remembered oh yeah, I got the email from Fixer and Fabulous to get it on the show and had we not done all the things to our house? My wife and I, we were looking at that going dude look what they can do to our house.
Speaker 1:We should go paint it purple and pink and yellow again and get you back on so where we live.
Speaker 3:we live on Main. On Main in Johnson, like Main Street, there's our house and we were like this would be so great if we did this. I mean what it would do to our property value and everything would look incredible. We would love it. And yeah, we just sadly fixed up our house too quick before we did all our stuff.
Speaker 2:At least you did it, yeah, and that's, you know.
Speaker 3:We could always talk about things in ways that we could make this happen, because it feels like we're negotiating a deal right here.
Speaker 1:I'm just saying Season seven, right.
Speaker 2:I, I'm just saying Season seven.
Speaker 3:right, I'm just saying Season seven.
Speaker 2:I wouldn't talk too much more about your location, of your house, because Josh is kind of taking mental notes. He's like I know I'm going to see you.
Speaker 1:I'm going to see him running now. I'm going to go down there tomorrow and I'm going to see if that's him.
Speaker 2:Next time I'll stop.
Speaker 1:I know it's him. I was so convinced it was him. I was so convinced. I'm going to be literally walking my dog and I'm going to hear hey John, hey John, right behind you, oh my God, hey John right behind you and I'll text you.
Speaker 3:I'll be like Josh, were you and John, she's like no, why, why not? What do you mean? I'm?
Speaker 1:like the FBI.
Speaker 2:I'm like the FBI. That's a tagline for this thing.
Speaker 1:That's the podcast. I like the FBI. I like the FBI. Stay below reproach, that's right.
Speaker 3:But no, seriously, I, we, we probably would have done that had we not done those things. So now that my wife's going to find out that you were on this podcast, she's going to go.
Speaker 2:Well, season seven, right, and I'm like babe, I mean, you never know, maybe we can do some kind of special. I wouldn't hate it. I mean, come on, I mean it would be nice, let's get it done.
Speaker 3:All right, Josh, let's get Davey on the phone. Let's get it done. We need to talk to the decision makers. Let's get it done. So I mean, how do they choose the houses? I mean, they ultimately are the ones who have to choose the houses.
Speaker 2:There's a bunch of different layers that it has to get through before Dave and Jenny go look at it and I don't know. That's kind of all out of our hands. How many houses a season? Generally 16.
Speaker 3:16? Do you?
Speaker 1:watch the show regularly.
Speaker 3:I do 16?. Have you seen these two?
Speaker 1:guys on the show I probably have. I'm so old.
Speaker 3:I don't remember what I had for breakfast.
Speaker 2:New season comes out. What Next week? Yeah?
Speaker 3:Congratulations on every season. I mean, that's just so awesome.
Speaker 2:So it's six right now, right, yeah, you should know this. They kind of all just blend in.
Speaker 3:See, that's what I'm saying. You do so much, you don't even remember.
Speaker 2:You don't remember. That's what I told, what we were having at Torchy's, and I was like you got John to come here and I was like he was on the radio. And you had to have just started. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:And I mean you guys were at every event.
Speaker 2:I remember that was back when Carrie was in college, Like we were at all the college things.
Speaker 3:That was back when we were doing a lot of live broadcasts from a lot of different places. We were either at a car dealer on Saturday or Sunday we would be at a bar for a bowl game. We've done everything, from subdivisions with real estate companies. We've done Macadoodles, shout out Roger. All of those things.
Speaker 2:Did you guys ever go up to Shadow Lake? No man, that's back in the day. Oh man, I had to bring it up. Sorry, oh man.
Speaker 3:Do you know what Shadow Lake is? I don't know. Okay.
Speaker 1:Is this for the?
Speaker 2:outtakes or this is going to be good. No, it's good. I mean any people that have lived here. You got me to talk about Shadow.
Speaker 3:Lake Shadow Lake, shout out. Rod Shadow Lake is a establishment on the river in Knoll Missouri and it's a unique property, to say the least, and it is right there on the river. It's covered but it's outdoors so it can pour rain and there can still be everybody. And it's a big place. It's got some square footage. You could probably get about 7, 800 people in Shadow Lake. They've got a stage area, they've got a DJ booth all of it in the middle of Knoll Missouri, on the river and Shadow Lake. They would have a season opening and a season ending event. They would have everything To open the season. They would have the homemade bikini contest.
Speaker 2:And that's all you heard on the radio for a month before they did this. This guy man.
Speaker 3:He listened to me, he's proving it right here and you're right. We would promote the hell out of this event because it was bonkers. The reason why it was is because they actually gave away really good like prizes. They would like all expenses paid trip to Dallas for like three days, two nights. All you got to do is just put some s'mores on you or whatever you can concoct. That was the other funny thing, by the way. They had a box of just nonsense and then people would make a bikini out of it.
Speaker 2:Did you go to this? Oh yeah, we went to it.
Speaker 3:What did you and Terry wear?
Speaker 2:We went to it once or twice we didn't wear it, but it's rowdy up there.
Speaker 3:So check it out, so we start broadcasting. Does this place still exist? That's a good question. Yeah, I don't know if it does. It's been a while.
Speaker 1:They've upscaled both of them.
Speaker 2:We both grew up Just bad idea to use. Man Rob wants to go. What's the name of this place?
Speaker 3:It's called Shadow Lake.
Speaker 2:He is now Googling Standby.
Speaker 3:Standby. But here's the best part. So like we would invite all of Northwest Arkansas and I think there was an element of it for Northwest Arkansans where they felt like it was close enough to it, was an easy drive, but far enough away where they wouldn't have any repercussions. And so these people would lose period, their period, minds period. They would go up there and they'd feel like they were two time zones away.
Speaker 2:Spring break.
Speaker 3:almost Show out in ways.
Speaker 2:The bar, the myth, the legend it is they have. Yeah, it's a thing, it's still a thing.
Speaker 3:So we would do these broadcasts where like 8 to 10 were live at Shadow Lake. Do you think those events would start till 1130? No, and so these people would show up and they would drink, and they would drink, and they would drink, and they would drink and they would drink. And by the time we would do these things, anybody would be in these contests because they didn't even know what was going on. And it was crazy and Crazy. And you would have like it would be me and Deke and the DJ Chad shout out. I love it. We would just get people up there and we're like all right, you've got tinfoil and yarn $1,000 cash prize for the best homemade bikini.
Speaker 2:Thank you. So, they're not as good as they used to be.
Speaker 3:Well, so we would do this and I mean, and whoever? Only 1010 center, and it was all applause and all crowd and it was whoever got the most. So they had to act as outlandish as they could, wearing just choose-your-own-adventure, and it was crazy. But the best part is it would all wrap up around 1230 or 1, 1.30. And boy, have you seen that meme where the guy is in the yellow suit and he's looking around a tree and he's doing this? That was the Knoll Police Department as that event ended, Because the event would end and all of a sudden people would leave and you would just be like and they would get everybody, and the only reason they didn't get us is because we were driving the station vehicle back and they're like, oh, we won't, we'll leave John and them alone.
Speaker 1:So when's the last time you did this event?
Speaker 3:Because 10 years 20 years it's been at least 10. That's amazing. It's been at least 10. We've been on 94.9 for 9 years, and so at least 10. That's amazing.
Speaker 2:Bobby wants to go. They have a dad's bod contest, See we could do this, bobby, we could do this.
Speaker 3:We're in. It is a den of iniquity.
Speaker 2:I am telling you, Shades amongst that lake shadow, oh my.
Speaker 1:John, we've been bringing you back to sponsor the BT podcast.
Speaker 2:They're probably going to watch this and they're going to try to reel you in.
Speaker 3:That is absolutely not going to happen. No think about it. I don't even know if Rod even owns it anymore. I have no idea, but it was a crazy environment to do a remote.
Speaker 1:John and Deke sponsoring the B-Team podcast up at Shadow Lake.
Speaker 2:Live at Shadow Lake. They have a foam float fest.
Speaker 3:A foam float fest? Yeah, I'm sure they do. They're right on the river, yeah, so I'm sure they totally have that. The fact that you knew this, matt, sorry for bringing that up, the fact that all the remotes I've done thousands of remotes in my life and the fact that the first one he brought up was Shadow Lake is chilling Well, your face.
Speaker 2:I mean we're going to kind of zoom in there in a pocket so we're like, did he say Shadow Lake?
Speaker 3:The muscles in my face died when you said she was like I didn't think anyone was alive, that's pretty much the face and you're like how do I come back from this?
Speaker 3:no, no, no, it was fun. Those were hilarious times and nothing too bad happened. My favorite shadow lake moment oh boy, is this. We would. We would have these applications because they would make people fill out. They weren't ndas, but they were like applications, where they were like, okay, I want to be in Shuttle Lake, check, yes for whatever. And so we would go to all, of course, the people that we would like. That would be great. We went to this one girl who was with the most possessive boyfriend you've ever seen in your life. Oh no, you're showing them photos, aren't you?
Speaker 1:Oh.
Speaker 3:God, oh, geez. So we went to one girl and we're like, hey, you want to be in this and I mean I don't know if it was her boyfriend or fiance or her husband or whatever. He got so pissed off and he's like where's John Williams? And so, thankfully, I was with a group of like nine dudes and he started getting really obnoxious about it and the bouncers were all in tune to that. And so the more obnoxious he got, the more the bouncers started getting between us, the more obnoxious I started getting. So he's trying to get to me.
Speaker 3:And did you see Shane Beamer, the South Carolina head coach, with Brett Bielema at Illinois? Yeah, and you'd see him as like hold me back guy. I became hold me back guy. I was like you got a problem, what do you got? Meanwhile I've got nine people in front of me. He's never going to get to me ever. And he started getting really pissed off. And then the bouncers kicked him up and carried him feet first out of Shadow Lake and then you've never seen anyone worse than me at that point.
Speaker 1:Was it Matt Morris? Potentially Cause it could have been. You were dating Carrie back in that time and I'm like what.
Speaker 3:You know it was just so bad it was straight out of Entourage it was so bad. Great show, but no Shadow Lake man. We just did seven minutes on Shadow Lake. That is wild, I'm sorry to everybody.
Speaker 1:It's been a pleasure having you in.
Speaker 2:Did we just do my final seven minutes?
Speaker 1:on Shadow Lake?
Speaker 2:I don't know what Matt's going to say next. My God, I'm sorry everybody, I've got to play math for that, not you, my goodness. Yeah, I mean we can cut it out if it doesn't work the last 20 minutes were me working you to get on Fixer to Fatness and Shadow Lake. I mean, I haven't seen John that happy in years.
Speaker 3:It's been since Shadow Lake, since I saw John that happy he had graham crackers and chocolate all over him.
Speaker 1:I don't know what happened, anything you want to plug Any websites, any upcoming events going on. You know what?
Speaker 3:No, it's just basically all women's basketball, men's basketball, and then baseball starts Valentine's Day, and then listen to 94.9 Radio John Deak and 92 on the ticket for when we do triple-double on Tuesday nights with Courtney Mims of KWA.
Speaker 1:Love it. So no, love it, I love it. Thank you for having me. This was really cool, this was fun.
Speaker 3:And this is a really neat deal you guys do and if I can in any way help promote it and get the word out about it, I will Don Okay.
Speaker 1:Gentsgiving year four. Yes, that's what you call it Gentsgiving. Gentsgiving, that's tight. Yeah, it's a good event, we'll get you involved.
Speaker 3:We've got to find a way for you to promote Gents Place.
Speaker 2:We can do that. We've got to figure out a way We'll do that yeah.
Speaker 1:I want to keep you married. I'll be fine Pleasure.