Pete Whittingslow Chat

Pete Wittingslow joined the Thunderbolts as a rookie in 2014, came back to the team in 2015. He's split some time between the bullpen and the starting rotation in his two years with the Windy City Thunderbolts, and I'm happy to be joined right now by Mr. Pete Wittingslow. Joining me here in the press box, Pete, welcome.

Thanks for stopping by. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. We are, of course, going to dive into your career in baseball here.

I've made it a tradition this year, and I don't know why I just kind of worked out this way about asking people about their names when they come in. You have nothing, this is not an insult anyway. Nothing crazy or interesting about your name. I don't know what to ask you about that.

So unless you have an interesting story about how you came to be a P. Wittingslow, we're just going to move right into baseball. Well, the name Pete has some family value to it. We have a, on my dad's side, we have a bar on the beach in Jacksonville that was opened by my great-grandfather in 1933.

His nickname was Pete, and it's one of the longest standing businesses in the Jacksonville, Florida area. So it's just a cool tradition, and the name's just kind of been passed down. But other than that, the Thomas part is pretty routine. Well, and that's pretty good, though.

You do have a story. That's fantastic. Everywhere I've looked, actually, everything I found out you online, you're listed as simply Pete Wittingslow. Are you Pete or Peter?

I'm Pete, just Pete. I go by my middle name because my dad, his dad, his dad, they're all Thomas's or Tom, Tommy, some variation. And they wanted me to be different. So I go by Pete, my middle name, not Peter, just Pete.

All right, I know I said I was going to skip through the name stuff and jump for interface. I'm more and more curious. You're one of five or six guys I want to say on the team who goes by their middle name. Do you guys in the clubhouse know that?

Are they aware when they're talking to each other that they're not going by their first name? I think if anyone knows, it's us down in the bullpen, because as you know, it's a long season and some of those games, we keep ourselves entertained in the bullpen. So we know each other really well down there. We guess each other's middle names, first names, stuff like that.

But I would be surprised if God position players knew Pete was my middle name. Well let's go into the game of baseball right now. I always like to get to know guys how they got into the game. What first drew you to the game of baseball?

One of my first memories is just watching it with my dad on the couch. I started really young. I think I played my first year when I was four, five at the oldest. And I just remember watching baseball, watching the Atlanta Braves with my dad all the time.

And it was just instantly fell in love with the game. And I haven't missed a season that I've been old enough to play since I was four or five. You grew up in Kennesaw, Georgia, is that correct? Yeah, I lived in South Georgia for about 10 or 11 years.

And then I spent the past 12, 13 years in Kennesaw right outside of Atlanta. Okay, so you're right near the Braves. How far were you from Atlanta when you were a kid? I was four hours when I was younger.

So it was cool when we would make it up to Atlanta to see family, you know, it'd be a big event to go to the Braves and stuff like that. So it just made, you know, we love them in baseball even more. I don't know how familiar you are with Civil War history or with baseball history, but Kennesaw of course is a town that has a great name connection with the game of baseball. Kennesaw Mountain Landis was the first commissioner of Major League Baseball.

He was named after that same region that you were from as a kid, Kennesaw Mountain, Georgia. And you went to Kennesaw Mountain High School too, right? That's right. Yeah, we got, we have a lot of connections right there.

It's really cool when my family's really big in history as well. So, you know, my friends, family will go running through the battlefield, you know, take our dogs for walks and you know, they have all the plaques for reading and it's a good area. Now you talk about growing up as a Braves fan. You grew up during the 90s, which is a fantastic time to be growing up as a Braves fan.

Do you have any specific favorite players from that era? Yeah, my favorite would have to be John Smoltz. You know, it was great. You know, I wish I'd been old enough to really, really appreciate what was going on then.

But John Smoltz was by far my favorite. He went through five arm surgeries, which many people don't know. I've myself have gone through a couple of major surgeries. He went to, he was a starter and a closer.

I've started and I've been in the bullpen. He's, you know, he's a great man off the field as well. He's in the golf like I am. So I've always been really drawn to Smoltz.

He is my favorite player. Did you get a chance to watch when he was inducted into the Hall of Fame this year? I'm sure you had to be excited about that. Oh, yeah.

I was fired up about all of them. It was really cool because Bobby Cox, the manager, went in right, you know, right with them, right before them, I guess you could say, and then Smoltz, Glavin, or Smoltz, Maddox, and I'm sorry, Glavin and Maddox, and then Smoltz, and then Shipper Jones will be next. So it's been fun to watch. You're making a lot of assumptions about Shipper Jones.

I'll let it slide. I'm interested in getting an Atlanta resident or at least somebody who's from near Atlanta. Their perspective on this because I know in Chicago, at least the perspective in Atlanta during those 90s runs for the Braves was that fans kind of grew tired of making the playoffs. They won the division every year.

And it really didn't mean anything until you got a little bit deeper, maybe the championship series, maybe the World Series. Did you kind of get that sense? Was there not as much excitement for the early runs of the playoffs? Yeah, I would definitely say that the Atlanta fans got really spoiled and we started to take it for granted.

I'd be lying if we said otherwise. You know, I love the City of Atlanta. I root for every major sports team, but at the same time, I think in that sense, sometimes we became a little spoiled and, you know, I love the City of Chicago because their fans are at their games, no matter what, whether they're good or bad, people are going to cheer on their sports teams. And, you know, I wish, I know I hope Atlanta can grow to that kind of sports town where no matter what they can then, they're there.

But I think those times when we were really, really good kind of spoiled us a bit. Let's talk back about your personal experiences through baseball. You talk about playing since you were little. What point in your life did you decide you wanted to be a pitcher rather than trying to hit full time?

Oh, gosh. Well, if you ask anybody who knows me, they'll tell you I joke around all the time that I still can hit. So you still haven't made that decision? No, no, no.

My mind, I'll always be a hitter who was forced to pitch. But in high school, you know, living in the Atlanta area is just such a big area for high school baseball. We have a lot of really big time team, summer fall teams, high school teams for that matter too. And I was surrounded by such a talent.

I knew my best opportunity to get into good colleges and get good scholarships, things like that, where to highlight myself as a left-hand pitcher because, you know, at the time I threw decently hard and I was on good teams and these guys in the outfield where I used to play, we're going to SEC, ACC schools where, you know, so, okay, I think I'm okay. These guys are really good. So it kind of forced me to get on the mound full time, but I don't, you know, regret that decision at all. Let's talk about when you did first go to college and play ball in college.

Now, do I have a strike? You went to Florida College for your first year? No, my first two years of college, I went to East Tennessee State. They're like a mid-major division one up in like the Tri-Cities tip of the state of Tennessee, right by Virginia and North Carolina.

I went there for two years, then I had surgery on my elbow, my freshman year, so I registered it. So after my two years at ETSU, I left as a registered freshman so I could go to a junior college because I didn't want to sit out a year. And so I went to a junior college, Florida State College in Jacksonville, in Jacksonville, Florida. And then after that I spent two years at Valdosta State and Valdosta, Georgia.

Well, let's talk about the recruiting process first of all when you did go to East Tennessee State. Now, all three places that you went, you stayed in the general southern region, but you did a little traveling going from Georgia to Tennessee to Florida back to Georgia again. When you were in high school when you were being recruited, were you looking at any other schools and what was the process like for you? Did they come seeking you out as a pitcher?

Yeah, I definitely was fortunate enough to have a good amount of recruitment and it was a really fun time. Some of them actually recruited me as a hitter. I got that in there, but almost everyone was as a pitcher and kind of through the recruiting process for all three schools. Every time I take a visit to a school, I just wanted to make sure I felt comfortable with the pitching coach, with the head coach.

I wanted to like what was going on around the campus as well outside of the baseball aspect of it. And at the time, every stop that I made, I felt like I was making the best decision for me. Baseball wise, financially, things like that. And it worked out pretty well for me.

What was your mindset like when you went to East Tennessee? Because you only pitched there one year, you were there a couple of years, but you only were able to appear in APMs. When you went there, was it with the intention to do think of being there for a full four years? Yeah, that was the toughest of my four, I guess you could say college career because my senior year of high school was when I was going to ball really well.

I was more confident than I'd ever been. And then I hurt my elbow. And so I hurt my elbow. I ended up having to have Tommy John and I tried to delay it as long as we tried to do the rehab stuff.

So I ended up having it until I got to ETSU. So I lost that whole first year. And then that second year where I had eight appearances, it was a grind for me. It was a big mental block that a lot of people don't know that haven't had major injuries.

So I had the surgery and it's hard to overcome that right away. Some people it takes a lot longer than others. You see the guys on TV doing it, but some for some of us it's not that quick. So that season was a grind and just trying to get back to where I was as a pitcher.

And I really didn't feel like I did until I left and went to junior college the next year. And it might have been an inning thing. It might have been that mental hump I needed to get over. But that first year back the pitching was definitely really tough.

It also helped me grow a lot. I look back on it now and I appreciate it. But at the time it was definitely tough. When you had that first surgery, your young kid, 18 years old, just starting off college.

And like you said, you see guys on TV, they have time each on surgery. They come back a year later, maybe even less in some cases. And sometimes they seem like they didn't even miss a beat. Were you prepared for the type of recovery that you had to go through?

Have you ever been through, probably not anything that severe before, but have you ever been through any sort of recovery like that where you knew you had to basically rebuild your arm? No, not at all. I'd gone through a couple of stretches where your arm hurts a little bit. And you might, I'd take some time off.

But I'd never been through anything like that before. And it really took me by surprise with how much of a consistent grind it as a day in day out, just mentally and physically getting your left side of your body back to normal. And it was something I hadn't experienced before. And I tried to compete so hard when I pitched that when I was coming back, I wasn't throwing instantly like I'd known to throw for so long, not being able to do that.

Just added frustration on top of it as well. So now anytime I see anybody with any kind of shoulder or elbow injury, whether I know them or not, if they're a baseball player, I seek them out. I talk to them, I give them my phone number. I tell them, hey, if you need anybody you need to talk to, if you're having a bad day and your arm feels like it's not there, please ask me.

Because if anybody's been through it, it's been me. So I try to be a mentor to these guys because I didn't have that. And I know how important it is. I've got to imagine because you haven't heard a few other times since then that it helps you become a little bit more sensitive to what's going on in your body.

And you're kind of more aware of not only when you need to shut things down, but then how to progress from there? Yes, I know. I definitely learned from it. But the no side of that would be when they give me the ball and they let me go out and pitch, I become very stubborn.

I don't want to come out of the game. I want to compete and I want to win and I want to do everything possible. And that kind of has hurt me in some ways, but it's also been great because I've had some great games where it would have been easy to walk away. And I also had some games where I probably should have walked away.

And it might have led to an injury or a run that might have not happened if a fresh arm came in. But it's hard to take that ball away once they give it to me. Well, let's talk about back in your college experiences. We got through East Tennessee State.

You decided to transfer there. You went to junior college in Florida. And you said you wanted to go to junior college so you didn't have to sit out here. What led you to Jacksonville?

That was a relatively easy decision because my dad and his father, and his father, he was pretty much a lot of his side of the family, my grandmother, some uncles and aunts. They all live in Jacksonville. So it was kind of an easy decision. When I left Tennessee, I called one of my high school coaches and told them and within 30 minutes he had a Jew coz up and down the coast calling me.

It really helped me out. So I had some options. And one of the people to call me was that junior college in Jacksonville. Their pitching coach was a former fifth round left handed pitcher through the Braves organization who I still talk to today.

It was a big help for me. So that instantly drew me to the school and then having my dad and grandmother be able to be in all the games, that was another plus. And it just made it easy. And so I chose that over a couple other Jew coz.

Didn't even take visits to other ones because I thought those two were important to me. After your time was done at Florida College at Jacksonville, you went to Valdosta State. How did that process for you differ from when you were in high school? How was it similar?

You're kind of in the same position again. You're looking to go to a new school. You're kind of getting recruited again. What was different to you?

Was it an easier choice or a more difficult choice to go to Valdosta State than it was the first time going to East Tennessee State? It was definitely a little tougher because when I was coming out of high school, I wanted to go to Division I. I had that in my mind. I wanted to go to Division I.

And when I was getting my offers, I was lucky enough to get out of all the Division I offers. I felt East Tennessee State was the best one that I had. So I went there. When I came out of junior college, I wasn't as set on Division I only or stubborn.

I guess you could say I really wanted to hear out all the best available options for me. I wanted to take it all in financially. What would be for the best because if I'm having to pay out of pocket, where would be an opportunity for me to get the ball, game one every weekend location. I took a lot more into account the second time around and I spoke to some really good schools coming out and I spoke to some other Division I was as well but I chose about Os Estee because of the coach, because of the location, because of the scholarship.

I took a lot more into it than I did the first time around. Let's go towards end of collegiate career for you. What was your mindset at that point when you finished college? Of course, eventually you did sign on with the Thunderbolts.

Was your immediate thought, okay, I'm going to go on to play professional baseball right now? Or did you start thinking, okay, college is over? Maybe it's time to start looking for something else to do. This is actually, that little time frame was the first time I ever actually thought of life pass baseball because my entire life all I wanted to do was play for the Atlanta Braves.

I wanted to be a professional baseball player my entire life. At the end of my senior year of out also state, as the season progressed, my arm kind of started giving out on me a little bit I guess you could say. I still thought, yeah, I'm definitely going to play pro ball. By the end of my senior year, my arm was hanging.

I was doing everything I could and I liked that looking back on it because I literally did everything I could for that team and we ended up winning a championship. By the end of that senior year, my arm was dead. I couldn't go play even if I wanted to. The scouts knew that as well.

I couldn't really get signed with a dead arm. I actually moved to Aspen, Colorado. I spent six months and I spent the winter following my senior year with one of my best friends from high school, fellow left handed pitcher. We both had our degrees.

We both had been through the grind, just got hurt. We said, hey, let's go. Let's go somewhere fun. Let's go do something we've never done before.

We landed in Aspen, Colorado. It was one of the best experiences of my life. I love that place. And so my coach, I had to do this all the time.

But baseball is still my love and that's what drew me back. So when I talked to Piga, coming back in plan, it was a no brainer. How long were you in Aspen? I was in Aspen.

I finished school the summer of 2013, finished college baseball then as well. I was at an Aspen by Halloween and I was there all the way up until this spring of last season. I was there for about six months. That's got to be an incredible culture shock for you I think, coming from south.

Did you ever been to like anything that before? No, nowhere close to anything like that before. It blew me away. We were two guys from South Georgia going out to Aspen Colorado, which is not only a weather shock, but Aspen is very high class.

It's very nice. You see a lot of fur coats and big diamonds out there. It was really, really cool. We got a good job with the ski company out there.

We were able to, we had a good job where we were still using our brain every day, but we were still getting the ski and snowboard. It was an unbelievable experience for sure. You said you wanted to go there and you wanted to try something different. Did you have this job lined up before?

Did the two just go out there and say, let's see what we could do? We were somewhat responsible about it. My buddy especially, he's a very responsible guy. I love that kind of death.

We decided we wanted to go somewhere. We wanted to do something. At first we thought about going out to a ranch because we both liked the outdoors and hunting and fishing and stuff like that. But then he had a family friend who lived in Aspen.

He remembered that and told it to me. It was game over. It was how quickly can we talk to them to talk to someone else to get a job. Once we had the job lined up, we got our housing lined up and then we took off.

That's going to be a fantastic experience. You're out in Aspen. At what point did you get the call saying from the Thunderbolts, hey we want you or did you pursue that yourself? When I was at Valdosta State, we had a former Valdosta State player that was playing here.

His name was Matt Costello. He had seen me play at Valdosta and he sent me a message one day saying, hey, if you don't get drafted or signed with an affiliated team, let me know because I know you could definitely come play here. I said, okay, my season ended. Obviously my shoulder, my arms kind of messed up.

I didn't play. I let him know that. I was out in Aspen and I was just minding my own business and enjoying life. He had asked me earlier if I was still interested.

I was like, yeah, I love baseball. I'll always be interested. I was on my snowboard actually on a lift going up. I had my headphones in listening to music and all of a sudden ring ring.

I have no idea who it is. I just click answer. Hello. By the time I got off the lift, I had a conversation with Bigo about coming to play.

I was like, okay. I got off on the lift, bombed it to the bottom of the mountain as fast as I could, called my family, booked me a flight home and a short time later I was here. That's going to be one of the more exhilarating rides down the mountain of your life. You're up on top of this mountain.

You got a call saying, we want you to play pro ball and then you should know we're done. That just sounds like a sequence out of a movie to me. Yeah, it was definitely my favorite ride of the season. That ride down, I had the music blaring.

I think I was smiling the whole way down. So, of course, you didn't join the Thunderbolts at the start of last season. You were still recuperating from an arm injury. Was that your focus the whole way up until spring, up until the time you joined the team in mid-July?

Were you focused on getting back to the Thunderbolts? Were you still involved in other things at that point? No, I was 100% every day I tried to get my arm ready because they signed me. I had had that conversation with Bigo and then I was signed for spring training.

I said, okay, I got home as fast as I could. I started throwing every single day, every single day. I was trying to get ready as fast as I could. But with that arm injury, I think I want to believe that it was like some scar tissue build up in my shoulder and stuff.

But anyways, when I got home, my arm was stiff as a board. I wasn't throwing to the level that I knew was necessary to compete here. So I called Bigo before spring training. I said, hey, I could come out right now, but I know you'll release me with my arm being where it is.

Is there any way I can just get a little extra time? Because when I show up, I want to be ready to go. He said, that's fine. Take as much time as you need, which I owe him a lot for that.

It was fantastic for him to do that. He could have just released me. And so I tried to do it as fast as I could, literally every single day. And it didn't end up working out until a week or so before the All-Star break.

But by then, it was better just, hey, let's just wait until the All-Star break. So I got here in the middle of the All-Star break, just cool. I got to see the city and stuff before we got rolling. And by then, my arm was ready to go.

I'm curious about what you were doing that first half of last season. Just because I'm from my perspective, I handle all the rosters here with Windy City. So I put you on the roster at the beginning of the season. I put you right on the inactive list because you weren't here at the beginning of the year.

I had done my research on you had gotten your stats and your bio together. And then I didn't think about you again because you weren't here. You were going to activate Pete. So who?

Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. That guy that we had at the beginning of the season. So while that whole thing was going on, take me through your day-to-day, what was the process of getting ready for the season like for you?

Yeah. So I was back in Vout-Osta, which is 20 minutes from the Florida line. As soon as I got back to Atlanta, I drove three, four hours down to Vout-Osta. And every day I was in the weight room.

And then I would go to the field. And I would throw. And what took so long was because I had had surgery on my shoulder at the end of that senior year. And then I went to Aspen.

So I didn't do any throwing. I did some rehab. But then I took off. And then I went back.

I couldn't just pick up a baseball and start long tossing. I had to progress. I had to do this many throws at this distance and this many throws and then this many. And so it took me longer than say the average arm would have if they just wanted to get back to it because they could probably just go out and start long tossing until they feel good, where I had to go 60, 90, 120, 150.

And that took a little longer. So I was basically every day, wake up, go to the gym, go to the field. After that, I'd have time to spend time with my friends, my girlfriend, and then next day, same exact thing until I was able to come up here. You did end up making it to the Thunderbolts in July.

And you pitched well out of the bullpen right out of the gate. And then towards the end of the season, you got a few opportunities as a starter. You started the last week plus of the season. I got a couple of opportunities there.

What brought that on? Did you go to the coaches and say, hey, I really want to start? Or was that their idea of thinking they just wanted to see what they could get out of you? Yeah, well, they signed me as a starter.

And I knew when they were bringing me in for spring training, it would have been to try to win a starting job. And honestly, that's what I've done my entire life. This is the first thing I've ever been on where I was in the bullpen, aside from that first year at ETSU. So if anything, I've kind of adapted it here rather than, you know, when I'm starting, that's where I'm in my happy place, you could say.

So it was a very smooth transition to me. Once they let me start those few games, it was no problem at all. Even the game that I started this year, a couple of weeks back, it was, you know, I've been bullpen made a start and it was like never skipped a beat. You started well, your last game of the season here at Standard Bank Stadium.

You pitched really well when seven innings in that one. What was your mindset going into the offseason? Did you come out of that game thinking, okay, I'm going to be back here. I'm going to be part of the rotation next year.

Yeah, yeah, I definitely did. Because my first start was such a bad start. You know, just I didn't want to get over to over excited and I ended up having a really bad game. Which was my last start, like you mentioned, I really wanted to have a good game and I had a pretty good game.

So it gave me all the confidence in the world going into the offseason that I can do it. Like I can compete at this level and get guys out for more than one inning. So this whole offseason, you know, I had a lot of confidence being able to come in and pitch, you know, and pitch well for this team in this league. You came into spring training this year.

You didn't make the team this time around. I'm very curious as to what happened next for you because you were not gone very long. 10 or 12 days into the season, you were brought back. What was that two weeks like for you?

What was going through your head during that period? It was good and bad. So I came into spring training, trying to win a rotation spot. And as you know, we have four lefties in the rotation.

I was basically the fifth guy and you know, Travis Tingle, you know, that's our only right. He was obviously going to be in there and he came down to me and some other lefties and ultimately they made the decision they did. So when I went home, it was really nice being with my family and friends. You know, everyone back home, I loved them to death.

So it was really nice being with them. And but you know, I wasn't around baseball so that it hurt. It hurt not being wanted. I guess you could say it hurt being home.

But at the same time, when I did get released out of spring training, you know, big an instrument he brought me in their office and you know, I could tell that they really didn't want to do it. You know, they really didn't want to let me go. You know, big it was very adamant in telling me, hey, the first available, you know, the first guy to go, you're coming back. First thing happened, you're coming back.

It was just the numbers thing. And you know, the way it worked out, they felt it was best to go that route. And but he let it be known. First available spot we have, we want you back.

And he held his word, you know, within those 10 days, like you said, I hadn't signed with another team or anything yet. And you know, I got a good relationship with a lot of people here. So I said, yeah, let's do it. And came back.

Let's talk about the relationships you have with people here off the field a little bit. You've already mentioned being part of the bullpen. Relief pitcher is always a quirky bunch. Like you said, you've been a starter for most of your career.

So you're still kind of adjusting to being down in the bullpen. But I'm sure you develop good relationships with guys down there. What types of things do you do not only to keep yourself interested during the games, but what types of things do you do with teammates on off days too? Yeah, so on off days, I love golf.

Try to play a lot of golf. So and a lot of guys on the team love it as well. So me, Jake Fisher, Max White, Cam G and eating Ryan Dietrich, Danny Jimenez. I mean, the list goes on and on.

I think you get named guys who don't play quicker than guys who do play. So we try to play a lot of golf. Jake Fisher and I will go to the pool whenever we can do that. We'll go to the weight room, things like that.

But yeah, I would definitely say if we're together on an off day, it's usually on the golf course. When you are on a game day, you're down in the bullpen. What are some of the weirder things you guys do down there to pass the time? Our bullpen's really big on games.

We play different games like the MLB name game. This one will go on forever. So if I said Chipper Jones, you would be up next and you'd have to say a name that started with a J and say you said, you know, John Smoltz, I'd have to say one that started with an S. This will go on for six innings at a time because we know so many players.

But we'll play that one. We'll play other games. We'll play pranks on each other. Some of it I probably couldn't even say on the air, but we definitely keep it entertaining down there.

Well, Pete, I'm happy to hear that you're having a good time down there. And of course, we're happy that you're here with the Thunderbolts. And of course, specifically in the press box right now, I'm grateful that you were able to spend the last half hour with me talking things over. And I hope that everybody listening has gotten a better impression of peewitting slow the man and the pitchers.

Is there anything else you'd like to say before we sign up? Anything else you want people to know about you? Actually, you actually mentioned this to me beforehand. I slipped my mind before just now.

I wanted to ask you about the smartphone app that you talked about you were designing. Yeah, so I'm in the process of building a mobile application for iPhones and Android. I speak to my developer in India every morning at 6.30 AM because that's the time difference, obviously. So we speak every morning.

And it's a what it is, is it'll be a mobile marketplace for college students. I'm kind of keeping it close to the chest right now because we haven't launched it. But I'm hoping to have it up and running by October. It'll be a mobile marketplace for college students with kind of that exclusiveness.

You know, like when Facebook first came out, it was really cool to all the 18 to 24 or five year olds because they were the only ones who had it. It was exclusive to them. And kind of when I'm building something that'll be on college campuses, I want it to be a way for students to interact, whether it be a senior graduating, selling their furniture or a freshman coming in need furniture or textbooks or a local discount at the pizza joint on the corner of their campus, things like that. I just want to make it easy for students to interact with each other and hopefully make a quick book or save a quick book.

And I work on that every single day. It's called Thrift School, T-H-R-I-F-T-S-K-O-L. And it should be up and running by Hollin. I'm really excited about it.

And I hope it's a success. Where'd you come up with this? So when I graduated college, I was just looking around my bedroom and I just noticed all this stuff and I was like, gosh, I wish I could just give this to a college kid. I don't even need to sell it.

I wish there was just a way for me to talk to a college student directly that I knew I could just give it to. And then it was like a light bulb. And it's my own fault that I've taken so long to develop it. But I went to Aspen and then I played last season.

But finally, the idea has never left me. And finally, with the season coming to an end, I said, hey, let's do it. Let's make this thing a reality. And try to develop it and see if it has an need like I needed at that moment.

Alright, thrift school? Yeah, I know it's kind of hard to say the first time off the tongue. But it's thrift, you know, like the thrift store and then school. But with a little twist to it.

Alright, well we'll be on the lookout for that come October, November, that time range. Be winning slow, thanks again for stopping by the press box. I'll let you go. But I appreciate you spending this time with me and good luck to you and to the team the rest of the way.

Thanks for having me. It was fun.