We all remember Carlos Wray from his time at Duke (2012-2015) and the Golden Era of Duke Football he was a part of. Carlos previously sat down for an interview back in 2020 and another one in 2021 to discuss the Blue Devils’ appearance in four straight bowl games.
Carlos at work as a coach.
During our third and most recent discussion, we talk about Carlos’ coaching career, family crises, leadership and, of course, Duke football. As you would expect, we spend some time going over what it will take for Duke to win and also how to better connect the football program to the Durham community. And we both mention that we don’t like BLEEDBLUE and that DukeGang should make a comeback (or, at the least, start using DukeGRIND).
Guys, if you haven’t figured it out by now, I’m a bit of nerd. Unashamed of nerdish ways, I made a guest appearance on one of my favorite podcasts, This Might Be A Podcast hosted by Greg Simpson, which is about one of my favorite bands – They Might Be Giants.
Live look at my wife’s reaction when I told her I was going to be on a TMBG podcast.
Older readers may recall the band’s big hit “Birdhouse In Your Soul” which got them on The Tonight Show back in the day. Over the course of their long career, TMBG did the themes for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, Malcolm in the Middle and, for those of you with kids, Mickey Mouse Clubhouse (both the opening and closing tunes). If you aren’t familiar with TMBG, they have been described as “alternative” (whatever the heck that means these days), indie rock, experimental rock, art rock, avant-pop (huh?), power pop, art punk and geek rock. And they’ve done a few children’s albums, too. Whatever label you want to put on the band, TMBG is nerd rock.
This Might Be A Podcast is a song-by-song podcast about TMBG. Each episode discusses a different TMBG song. The podcast is up to about 175 episodes so far with only another 700 plus songs to go. TMBG has been at it for 40 years and won’t stop making new music. Not even father time can keep TMBG down, nor does the fact that they’re older than they’ve ever been and now they’re even older. Greg’s efforts to chronicle each song makes him a modern-day Atlas.
Greg drops a new episode about once a week and this week I stopped by to talk about a great TMBG song, Yeh Yeh. (As a result of choosing to talk about the song, I learned the TMBG version is a cover of the Georgie Fame version, which is a cover of a cover of the original. Talk about spiraling shapes of confusion here.)
As you’ve noticed with my own podcast, I don’t let myself get constrained by the purported subject matter. Greg and I discuss a lot of things including the full story of my daughter’s appendectomy and bowel obstruction surgery (the episode was recorded the night before she came home). I appreciate everyone who reached out and helped our family during that time. A lot of you who have never met me were kind enough to pray for my daughter and that means a lot to us.
Greg and I also broke whatever record existed on his show for references to The Simpsons. We made a lot of them. A. Lot. We also talked about one of the greatest kids’ books in the history of ever – I Want My Hat Back. This. Book. Is. Perfect. And we do give away the ending. Consider yourself warned.
Eli Pancol took some time out of a Sunday to give us an update on what to expect from Duke heading into the upcoming football season. This was a great talk about the mood of the Blue Devils, how NIL helps student-athletes and Eli’s tattoos. That last topic took us down a discussion about his family’s history which is pretty interesting.
Eli celebrates a big play.
During the interview, Eli discusses his clothing line which you can find here. He’s got some cool stuff – check it out! If you do get some of his merch, post a video of you dancing in it and see how your moves compare to Eli’s moves.
My old friends from The ACC Weekly Podcast were kind enough to have me back on to talk about what to expect from Duke in 2022. This is, hopefully, an informative talk about Blue Devils football with some diehard ACC fans. I hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
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