DAC Pack Deep Dive
Nate, Dan, Bill and Leon meet with Parke Simms, the DAC Pack President to find out more about today's DAC Pack, the challenges, opportunities and try to talk through how the Alums and fans can help them grow as they work with the front office as well.
Transcript
Nate H: Hello everybody. Welcome to Dragonscast. I'm Nate. We've got Bill. And, Dan and then Leon and then excellent guest tonight, to have Park Sims with us, the DAC pack president, And we were just talking, it's hard to believe I'm 16 years out of school.
I think we wouldn't be doing this tonight if it wasn't for the, our experiences with the DAC Pack. Just curious about where things stand and just learning about the current,the DAC Pack and maybe somebody listens to this and they're like, Hell yeah, I'm going to a game. so Park, thanks for joining us here tonight.
Parke Simms: Yeah. Awesome. Thanks. Thanks for having me.
Meet Parke Simms
Nate H: So just wanna start out to tell us a little about, a little bit about yourself. where are you from, and maybe go through your background even, with your student section and how that carried over in a college.
yeah, so I'm from, South Central Pennsylvania, York County and a little town called New Freedom, right on the Mason Dixon line about two hours from Philly. and, I'm a architectural engineering student at Drexel. I'm a senior in my fifth year. and of with that I've been, member of the DAC pack all five of those years as well.
Parke Simms: So with that, I've picked up, varying levels of involvement. got in around my freshman year, did a little bit of work, with them through that. And then, moving forward into my sophomore year, I became the. I was in that role for two years. the past year I was the vice president and now I'm the president of the DAC Pack,
Nate H: I'm sure everybody appreciates you stepping up and taking on that leadership role. now new freedom. What school district is that? Cause I live in Mechanicsburg, so of course Mechanicsburg School District. So what school district is that?
Parke Simms: Southern New York County School District. I went to Susquehanna High School.
Nate H: Gotcha. Okay. I'm still learning. Iwe moved here. It's hard. I believe five years ago. I'm learning all, there's so many little. School districts, like I was trying to get caught up in high school football and then,so I'm going through district three and there's a million schools in district three, so it's hard to keep track of.
So now I know about your neck of the woods. tell us about, even in high school, what was your student section like and then, did that want you to get more involved with the DAC Pack once you got to, to Drex?
Parke Simms: Yeah, so throughout. School. our sports teams weren't too great. but there was definitely a solid, amount of student turnout that, would go to most notably the football and the basketball games. and the student section was always rowdy. It was of a good time. people, having fun yelling stuff at the players.
I remember, some people tried to organize a hot dog eating contest at the halftime of our football games. for the basketball games, people would dress up in ridiculous outfits. I remember, this one guy, he dressed up as a fisherman. He had the waiting boots. he brought a fishing rod into the game.
and he put a dollar bill in the end of the fishing line and was like throwing it onto the court. but it was a really good time. All kinds of different rowdy, antics and things such as that. I knew when I got introduced to the DAC pack, here at Drexel, that was something that I was always interested in, exploring what it had to offer.
Nate H: You're speaking my language a little bit with the hot dog eating contest. I cry myself to sleep at night that there was a, before the Friday of the Super Bowl, cause they, I'm Wing Bowl anymore. I used to try to go every year but just to kind follow up so was it a quote cool thing to be in the students section?
Cause I was saying, know, when I was going through, it was, the camera crazies and I felt like, it was a big thing to be in a student section. These days. You hear about attendance down, I guess more in college, but was it a popular thing to be part of the student section?
yeah, I would say at least at our school, that was always the thing. Like Friday night, everyone would go to the football game. and, the basketball games, along with. and we would always have some pretty good size crowds. so I would say, so obviously more here at Drexel, I don't think,that push to the student section is necessarily as strong with the student body as I had experienced with my high school.
Nate H: what do you think is behind that? Iyou're fifth year a senior now, so you know, what are some challenges you face as far as getting that enthusiasm?
Challenges and Opportunities
I think a general thing with the atmosphere at Drexel. they have the co-op program, so you have, you have a large student body, but half of the student body isn't necessarily on campus at a given time. and I think that kind of. Disrupt the flow that you might see with a more traditional school, on the other hand?
I think there's a lack of, I guess kind of advertisement towards,Drexel athletics, for example, something that I've experienced at, various, recruiting events or, what have you. a lot of students aren't necessarily aware that the tickets are free. . that's something I I think the free athletic events that Drexel offers for students is amazing.
but the awareness of that necessarily isn't, as high as it should be. Okay.
Nate H: So what do you think could be done to help with that enthusiasm? Anything you guys are looking at this year or anything we could do to help too, as.
Parke Simms: Yeah, I mean with that, so something that we're planning on pushing is in every single promotion for. Promotional graphic or whatever, that we're gonna push on social media or, we've been recently, starting to release a newsletter to a mailing list that we have of interested students.
always gonna push in that have some sort of phrase, student tickets are free. Like it is free to come. cuz I, I believe that is something that needs to be properly stressed,for students to come. and then along with that, we're also trying to incorporate some, free giveaways, in the form of, we always have our DAC Pack shirts.
speaking with some of the, members of the athletic department, I know they have some various giveaways and other, fun things planned for the future, in terms of trying to drive student events.
Bill M: So for, engaging the students, are you. , Is there a lot of like live events that you guys are going to, or is it mainly, social media, email, however, or a more online communi?
it's definitely a mix of both. so one of the things that we've tried to,change up a little bit this year is,you guys are familiar with how Drexel works. So we have the, the welcome week. All the freshmen come in. and there we, we usually really try to, hit hard on recruitment and get, get our name out to as many interested students as possible.
there, but then there's a, a challenge because the basketball season, is a few months away. So we're trying to keep interest of. Potential students, potential new members, throughout that period of time. So something that we've done, we've hosted a couple events, in the past.
Parke Simms: We've done,we had a Eagle's watch party for their Monday night game against the Vikings a couple weeks ago. we had pretty solid turnout there. gave food, other giveaway items there as well. To students in attendance. and then as well as next weekend, we're gonna be hosting a three V three basketball tournament, trying to get some of those, athletically minded individuals out.
and again, another opportunity to get some one on one time with some potentially interested new members. And then, lastly, we've been doing some more informal stuff as. recently we've been, just a couple people, getting together, going to some of the hockey games.
and that's a bit of an experience of, you're getting a little bit of sharing as well as some one on one time with interested, individuals and trying to build, more solid relationships before necessarily the season starts.
Bill M: Is this something that deck pack's done before or is this kind of new under, under you?
Parke Simms: This is something that, that, me the rest of the e-board members, my team, have decided do. usually,in past years from my experience, it's been we've had a push at welcome week to get various interested members. and then the next kind of event would be, the Tip Off Blue and Gold Madness basketball kind of event.
So this is something that, that we're trying to do to bridge that gap from welcome week from those new member, potential new members getting on campus to the basketball season.
Leon M: I think that's great. I think if you're have that large of a gap, you're just gonna lose people's attention. So I think it's, anything you can do in there is amazing. I don't, Back in the day, I don't think we had anything like that, or I think we just pretty much focused on basketball season, Definitely just focus. And so you said Park, you've been in. DAC Pack pretty much since your freshman year. What was it? The welcome week that got you? What got you in first? I'm curious.
actually no. I wasn't aware of the DAC Pack when I first went on campus. funny enough was actually,some friends had come back to the dorm, the freshman dorm, around like I would say week three or so. And, they had, free stuff. They had sweatshirt, DAC Pack, a bunch of good free, free goodies.
and I was like, Oh, like I want that. And I want to, check out what this club has to offer. I went to the meeting,got to know some the guys. and I enjoyed it. So here I am stuck around.
Leon M: Is it still, and the, You mentioned that you were the vice president last year and this year you're the president. Is it the. System, as always in electing the president still of the DAC Pack, is it a CDO loading kind of thing that happens? Or is it more official, these.
I mean for how we've held our elections, a as far as I'm aware, has always been a round table discussion with members of the e-board. and then just voting after discussing that,hearing the pros and cons that, that each potential candidate might have to offer for the club.
coming off of our interview with Greg last week, or qic,he had a great quote that I know, Leon, you got out there. This. I appreciated that, talking about, The fact that the DAC Pack really is supposed to be a place about fun. it's not supposed to be a place about necessarily, your job is not supposed to be recruiting people that show the direction basketball games it's supposed to be providing the atmosphere once you're there, I guess is the direction we're going.
Dan C: The bottom line is you guys shouldn't be feel compelled, like I think it's two sides of the blade, right? And the one side is us coming back and saying, Hey, where student turned out. And in times passed, there have been members of the athletics department who have said, Well, the DAC Pack not doing their job.
You know, and that's the wrong answer from them. the idea that a paid staff member would say, Hey, the current students. Aren't doing their job, therefore, it's ridiculous. we've kinda always said, so it was refreshing to hear him not wanna put that on you, but at the same time you do wanna drop people to games.
it's it's what makes that atmosphere is what makes this kind of the circus that it can be. what, where do you find yourself on that balance? do you feel pressure? Is it just what are you going.
naturally there is, there's always, with the role, there's gonna be a bit of pressure. Because, being in charge of the student section, you want the student section to be as big and as loud as possible to, get that appearance of a great student atmosphere. but I will say, I think we're really trying to push the more, connections between, members and really forming.
like friendships, so to speak. like for example, some of my best friends are in the club. we hang out outside of,DAC Pack related stuff. Whether, it's going to, we will play like intermural sports or something like that. A few of them are my roommates. so we're really focusing on that angle to recruitment and retention.
because ultimately it, if your friend says, Hey, let's go to the basketball game, you might get five of your friends to all go to the game and naturally, everything is better in a group as opposed to a bunch of individuals that are all coming together, to be, to stand in the student section.
I think that's what it's all about. we're all here. Hanging out with each other still to this day, because of the DAC Pack. Like we, we have a group that goes to,the ca tournament every year since, besides the pandemic year or two, it's, it was been going on for 20 years.
I think that's the right way to sell it. the basketball's one thing, but it's really the, the friendships you make throughout and it's gonna bring you back and connect you to the university even after you.
Dan C: Phil, I was told Leon doesn't really like you that much actually, so it's odd happenstance.
Leon M: No, but there was plenty of times right where we'd hang out before the game and like almost as a warm up to the game, and also hang out continuously after the game, especially if the game was on like a Friday night or maybe even a Saturday afternoon. that's definitely the right approach and I'm glad it's getting back to, in a bunch of guys, a bunch of, guys and gals just having fun cuz that's what really it should be all about of the DAC Pack.
But as far as, you mentioned a little bit of like disinterest or apathy that folks have when it comes to probably sports in general, maybe basketball at Drex. And it's not surprising cuz I think that's something we faced the entire time we were at Drexel since we graduated. We still, when we talk to some of the alums that don't care.
so is there anything specific that you discussed with Greg that could change that? Or is it just something that has to slowly happen organically and build back, what we had maybe 10 years?
yeah, something that, that we discussed with Greg is, developing the whole. Game day experience and not necessarily just the encore product. because naturally with sports, some people are gonna be disinterested in sports, and that's eliminating a potential, group of people that might be interested in coming out to a game.
Parke Simms: But if you make the game entertaining outside of necessarily just, the Enco product, that'll draw other people in. And I think especially with the new video board, the deck is well, positioned to, to make it a better game day experience for potential, students and alumni coming out as well.
Video Board Aside
Leon M: Ha, Have you seen the new video board? Did you get a chance to see it park?
yeah, I've seen, it's still getting, fully put up, but it is, it's looking pretty good. I'm excited to see what, what all they're gonna do with it.
Leon M: Yeah, I think Bill had sent me a picture, Iwas it, who posted it to their Instagram? Was it,
Bill M: think a couple of the players, I think it might have been Lamar O and the one that you saw,
Leon M: you sent me, It looks humongous compared to how small the D is.
Parke Simms: Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah, , it does look a little too big for the deck, but I think that'll, that'll make the environment really fun.
Leon M: for sure. and you said you're an architectural engineer, you should take a, do a comparison on how big that board is compared to the D versus the Dallas Stadium jumbotron that they have over there, I think, which is the biggest one out there. So I think by relativity speak, relatively speaking, that one might be bigger, the one we have in the deck.
Bill M: told Leon, I was like, I think we might have to change our seats. That's so we're gonna be too close and we're gonna be able to see the video board. We'll have to, we'll have to back up in order to get a good angle at it.
Dan C: So you're looking for like a pixel per capita is what you're looking for.
Leon M: Something like that. But I was thinking about Dan, you don't have to worry about that. Nobody knowing there's a, there isn't a get basketball game anymore and from 33rd and market, there'll be a warm buzzing glow coming outta the top of the building. How big this thing
Dan C: Right through the roof. That'd be good.
I'm excited about it though. we haven. Had anything like that? Ithe atmosphere, I don't think we could even turn the lights off prior. Isn't that like thing that was,
Dan C: could, and I asked that early on. Yeah,
Bill M: Yeah, so I think we were pretty limited what we could do there. So seeing the video board and being able to add,exciting intros, to the atmosphere alone is gonna be fun.
Along with the other things you could do as far as, involving the crowd. I went to the Princeton game last year and the intros. Really good, like for all the players. And I'm like, we can't even do anything close to this until we, catch up on technology. So this is at least getting us to the point where we can, compete with some other schools in terms of,the video board at least.
Big Games and Big Trips
Nate H: Park I wanted to ask, I know one of the advantages we had was, preseason on it. We played Duke. being Syracuse and Villanova, is there a game or a memory you have, and is it harder for you to get kids out? the fact that, we won a championship, but it was during Covid.
has that been a challenge for you since we haven't had, I guess I hate to say other than a championship, it sounds weird, but games you bid to, has that been hard for.
obviously yeah, with my time at Drexel, we haven't had a Syracuse or a do well, we did play Syracuse away, but nothing like that at the dac or as like a home game? But II will say, I always think the environment for the Delaware games is fantastic. super fun. and I know, I believe this year we're gonna get a, a group of students to go to the AWAY game.
I believe it got rescheduled kind of last minute last year, so we weren't able to make that happen. But, that's always a good time. And the fact that for the Away game, it's a little bit of a trip. Everyone has some fun with that as well. so I, I would say those games are always, great memories.
the tournament itself, always great memory. I know some of my friends that have been around all five over years. the Charleston Tournament, was my freshman year. everyone had a great time exploring the city, going to the game, and that was really a great bonding experience. the group of freshmen that, that we were all getting to know each other and,everyone kind of hung around or great friends hang out.
as I mentioned before. so I think those tournaments and then the big Delaware game, is always the big ones for.
Nate H: I'm excited for you guys. I like, I don't know how you guys feel. I'm excited to Penn back on the schedule. I'm the kind of guy, I like those kind of games and I think we need to schedule 'em as much as we can. So I, I plan a drive down for that. I'm really looking forward to that game for you guys in particular.
Parke Simms: Yeah, I definitely, that'll be new to me. but I, yeah, I'm looking forward to that. And, talking with Greg, I know they've got some stuff planned for that, so that'll be, That would be a good one.
Leon M: I like our parks. first tournament was in Charleston, a much better city and enjoyable city than Richmond was. And the Motel eight, he got posted up.
Nate H: And they're gonna, You may have already learned that lesson of you make plans outside of basketball and that, that's another valuable lesson I learned. From our trips down there. learned to hate to say this. Not love Richmond, but at least tolerate it. And again, it's, you think of the, so it makes the DAC Pack what it is.
And I, my only other thought, you talked about the road trip, if you have somebody who has a car, when they're willing to drive, and I know grades, you're a busy guy tonight even, I'm sure, but I've studied in the back of many cars,recommend that too, if you can con somebody into driving you to some of these away games.
Parke Simms: Yeah, fortunately I believe, our plan is to have a bus to Delaware. so we should be able to get a sizable group of students. Transportation shouldn't be a problem for that. And then as always, with the CAA tournament, we have, we provide transportation for students for that as well.
Dan C: Now we've had an issue getting buses to Delaware in the past because, or getting tickets, I guess a ticket block from Delaware in the past. And we tried to send a DAC Pack bus. This goes into ancient DAC Pack history, but the key there is to say you were a what? A unfortunate or lesser involved, minority group from West Philadelphia who would like to attend a basketball.
Leon M: I thought all you'd have to do is check the age group of above 65 and it's automatic
if you want the group rate, you gotta, That's a senior rate. That's the same price, but it's just a different category. Yeah. It was, they didn't want, they didn't wanna set Drexel kids down. what are, what's your favorite part of being at a, at a Drexel basketball game?
Dan C: What do you enjoy most about being there?
I think the thing I like is just being there with all your friends are there. you get to have some fun with it. recently we've bought a bunch of wacky costumes. so that's always, you get to have some fun with that. and then you get to, you cheer the team on, you get to, heckle the other team a little bit.
so it's always all in good fun. and I always enjoy doing that with a group of people that I really enjoy being around.
I like your high school experience that the team wasn't very good and people were still showing up. I think that's really what we wanna strive for here. Iit's great when a team is good. it'll be a lot easier to get people, but if you can just make the environment, exciting and fun to be at, then.
Bill M: The product on the floor doesn't matter quite as much. And,
Parke Simms: Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
how are you feeling about the team this year?
I'm optimistic. obviously losing,Cam is a big loss. but I believe,Amari, it seems like he's been steadily developing throughout his time at Drexel. I think he can make the jump forward. and then, some the other guys that have been around, cold train Lamar, looking for them to make the step up, into.
Parke Simms: Kind of fill that, that, role that, that cam has left
Bill M: This is like the most mystery box season we've had in a long time where like we just don't know where they're like, Cam and James Butler have been there for so long, It feels like that, they've been steadying the ship and now it's okay, who's the next man up?
Parke Simms: It'll be interesting to see. cuz you know, both of the, both of those guys have been around my whole time. so it'll be a new look team, for my last year here.
Dan C: You go back to when Park was a freshman, like we would've taken mystery box like we knew we were gonna suck. this is, we'll take Mr. Back. Mr. Box is good. is stuff in the right direction.
Leon M: We've been lucky with the mystery boxes, especially at the Point Guard somehow we always get a cam and we, Kirk, even before that, and Charmaine to a certain extent,we've been pretty fortunate over there.
Bill M: Point guard, we'd have a good run of four year starters, And even Terrell Allen looked like he was gonna be good before he transferred out. yeah, I think we have another guy and Justin more that we've already talked about,we'll see what we got.
We're gonna need a lot of contributions from, new guys and, like you said, park, the guys in the squad now have to step up a lot and take over much bigger roles.
Dan C: The park's gotta get in the rough ears. Let's be honest. he's gotta with the stripes,know what's going on.
Leon M: He's got his oppo like opposition research ready to go on every ref. Just ask Dan Crane, he knows.
Parke Simms: There we go. we have a, there's a guy in the club,he loves digging up dirt on the other team res, whatever. so he's gonna be, putting some time into that before the season starts.
Dan C: That's the best. That's great.
Bill M: I don't know how many years ago, this was all blurs together for me, but someone had. Blown up an Instagram picture of one of the other players who was like just hanging out with a bunch of cats or something and he, they had blown it up and posted.
Parke Simms: I think that was my freshman year. I forget who exactly it was, but I think it was like a Instagram picture or tweet or something. And he, it looked like he was crying or his eyes were watering. Watering and I think it was like he's, he said he's allergic to cats or something. But,we'll hope to find some, some stuff like that and make sure, we'll dig up some old posts, print 'em out and put 'em on the student section.
Bill M: Yeah, I feel like when back when we were in school, there wasn't as much, Visibility to the players there. Like you'd only get some dirt on the player if they were like in the newspaper for something bad. like having all their, social media available to, go through and find dirt is, could be fun.
Leon M: I was curious Park is there anything that you think you, I know you already engaged a little bit with some of the alums and with Greg and with the athletic staff over there. Is there anything specific that you'd wanna tell our whole 50 fans? about like how the alum alums that are actually interested in Drexel basketball to that level, how could they help the DAC Pack?
yeah, so I think the biggest thing that, the biggest challenge for us, is so naturally giving, promo items and other giveaway items. out, is a great pool to try to get students in. we're college kids, so anything free is a great selling point to, to try to bring new people in.
but with that, our ability to, get shirts or other promo items has been pretty significantly limited, I'm sure to what you guys have been compared to. so like for example, we have a. There, there's a student org, promo item cap is what it is, and 10% of your budget can go to,promotional items such as shirts, anything logoed.
like our, we have sweatshirts, that, we're not necessarily able to restock in that. . but fortunately we've been able to, get some, outside sponsorships to help with that a little bit. the past couple years we've had New Age Realty, provide us with some money for some t-shirts and exchange for, the logo spot on the back of the shirt.
Parke Simms: But I think in general,any sort of promotional item that we would be able to provide to students or anything like that, would be greatly appreciated for us.
Dan C: It struck me, I think I've said this to Greg earlier the summer, but right when you got to campus, I just heard, I think like the day before about this cap and it just strikes me as yeah, I guess if you're the chess club, you want a promo cap because you're spending that money on tournament travel and boards and whatever else the chess club needs, but I feel like you're a promotional club, And that they, you'd hope that they would have some kind of exemptions and work arounds.
Parke Simms: Yeah, exactly. we're, we are a promotional club. our purpose. so for that to be so strictly limiting is pretty challenging to work around and try to, get new students in.
I'll lead a drive. let's get you what you need. I think that's it. I'd love to have these open communication with you, Park and see what we can do.
Leon M: Yeah. is there any sort of On stuff like that, on accepting I, I want, I think that's something we should probably clarify or get some more details on, but I don't see, Dan, to your point, you, if that's a, that I can see how that would be a limitation factor for a promotional club like the DAC Pack.
maybe it is something we can work around, but I'd be curious to see if there is any guidance or against it. Something to.
Parke Simms: Yeah, I meanthat's something that you know, we're looking to do. One of my goals is to. , find some way to work around it. Get rid of it, get an exemption, something. cuz you know, like it was said, we, we are a promotional club. so it's hard to do that without promotional items.
Leon M: I wanna definitely do something on the comeback game. Like every year we, we played Delaware, you should, at home, you should be reminding them of their 53 19 comeback that they, they choked it up for us.
DAC Pack Knowledge Transfer
Bill M: Like, how do you get information from prior DAC Packs? is there ever like you're coming up with some great ideas here as. As, trying to, engage people before basketball season. is there something that's been, just passed down? is it just word of mouth? Do you guys have some sort of guide?
Do you have a database of former DAC Packers, a DAC Packers now, I'm just curious like what type of resources you have, at your disposal, like coming in as a DAC Pack president.
so at least for, my time as a DAC Pack spanning the five years, I have a good sense of everything that kind of went down, within those five years, and I can reach out to, the past presidents of those, that time period. but something that I've tried to establish, especially with myself and some of the other members, that will be graduating this year, is to create that centralized, archive, of graphics, different communications with, various, people such as, reaching out for a shirt, sponsorship, or,communication regarding some sort of event.
getting a bus contract for, the CAA tournament, things like that. I'm trying to build that together so that can be something that gets continually passed down from, each, board throughout time.
Bill M: Yeah, I think that's definitely needed. I know there's been, various levels of success, from, different DAC Pack administrations and I just feel like a lot of that information gets lost if you're not, if there's not someone there who is directly involved with it. so I think trying to get that in one centralized location is huge.
So commend you on that.
Nate H: I think that's a good point. And I wanted something, I wanted make sure we were clear on, I know we come in peace, it's it's real or perceived, I know when I was going through it, there was a sense, this DAC Pack didn't do it as well as this DAC Pack and they didn't do it as well as this DAC Pack.
And I don't know how much that influenced, being able to pass things down. So hopefully I'm glad to hear, hopefully you have a pretty good relationship with people that have come ahead of you. To ask them questions and bounce stuff off them. And then, like I said, I, what I was going through, I didn't, I don't think I knew alumni.
I didn't know we existed. we're here and you have questions for us, and Dan and you guys were more involved. I was just long for the ride. but certainly a lot of other people, certainly we're here to help more than anything else.
Parke Simms: Yeah, I definitely appreciate you guys, reaching out to me for this and whatever else I might need in the future.
you're more than welcome. You wanna promote something. That's a great opportunity to do it. So yeah, Definit.
Dan C: So wanna hop in there and maybe we'll have you on one more time, right when the season kicks off. But my question here is of related to that, which is, if you have a new freshman who's showing up to a first basketball. Doesn't know what he's doing, he or she's doing. Where are you guys set up in the deck?
is this somebody who's brand new to this? can you kinda walk them through the game day? They get there and they're gonna come. They want to be part of
Parke Simms: Yeah. So if they're showing up to the game,we try to get there. I would say half an. Before to tip off. I would imagine a newer member, probably a little bit closer to game time. but we're always, on the, when you enter the deck on the far side behind the basket, right behind the dance team, feel like you, you can't miss it.
We'll be wearing wacky outfits, have signs,and will be the loud group.
Dan C: And all are welcome. Yeah.
Parke Simms: All are welcome.
Nate H: All right, thanks for coming. And then,yeah, even, hopefully I agree that's a good way to end it, of, how do you get involved. Win. We played Penn on a Tuesday night before Thanksgiving, and I just went down to the game. So I'm sure you guys will be posting how to get tickets and how to get to the games and stuff.
So yeah, anybody who's listening, just hop in, And hopefully you guys have some of the tier for this year. We're all hoping for that too, and if not, have fun. That's what this all about, Alright, so just organize this, we've got a nice agenda we can shoot through
Coach Rankings from a Reputable Source
Bill M: Do you guys want, Do you guys wanna touch on the coach, the coaching rankings here? We didn't. who, I don't know where these came. who put them out? Do you know Dan Off fan?
Dan C: I'm following the link cuz you got it looks like it's busting brackets.com, the very credible source busting brackets.com. I'm following this one under You can't believe everything you read on the internet and, yeah, I listen. Somebody went through the energy, took the energy of ranking 350, some coaches, God bless 'em.
it was pretty clear that they bucketed all the ca coaches as in the same general area. Then there are a couple outliers and, I don't know, Phil Shepherds there at 360 3. I don't know that there are 363 division one teams, so that, that would be hurtful, according to this list here.
Dan C: But outside of that, I don't think there's a whole lot to talk about. I don't really find.
Nate H: This is one of those things that I think is just generated for people to, click on and talk about it. It's not really you can't really take it too seriously, but where they got Spiker 2 27, Yeah, that's exactly what, yeah, it's click bait is what it comes down to. Actually, I was gonna put on slack or the message, the phrase I think of as mental masturbation actually spelled masturbation wrong. So that's why. So I did stick with it. but now, and just to see Patrick ua, the example I used, the guy didn't win a conference game.
So where, how is he anything better than I that I was like, I'm done with this. This is crazy.
Dan C: There was a ranking that came out the other day for, top and bottom. Wawa Delcos. Or Delco Wawas. And now that, that, that sucked me in. that was clickbait. I could get into this. This is just, this is too much. This is too far. But, if you wanna mean the outliers on the top end where Pat Kelsey and Bill Cohen, Which seems reasonable.
I actually think King Rice is a really good coach and Mala coming in and, Yeah, you've got Dane Fisher and it looks Phil Sheard at the bottom, which, Dane's dealing with the hand that he was dealt, which is an absolute crap situation in a place that's never won. Not, I don't know how you judge, I dunno how you should half of these guys, like it's, so much of this is about more than what the individual coach is.
It's certainly about more than X is and those, but, I think within the league we could have fun with it and we'll maybe we. Do an exercise where you get some other league members on kinda what we do with realignment. what we can do. We have a little coach speak. we can't all just worship it.
Bill Cohen's alter all the time. There's gotta be something else going on, so it'd be fun.
Bill M: I was surprised Pat Kelsey was thought of that highly. I guess just cuz I mean I guess they've been pretty good lately, but higher than Bill Cohen. I thought it was a little strange, whatever. Again, it's click bait, so we're here talking about it a little bit. so I guess they're,
Dan C: They did their job.
Bill M: did, their job is just getting people to talk.
Nate H: It reminds me, I think, was it Desmond Howard and his college football playoff top four and I can't remember what ridiculous four teams it was, but people are still talking about it, so it achieved its goal of clickbait, essentially.
Bill M: putting teams out there that you think are gonna make a tournament before the season starts,you're just guessing , for the majority of the field. maybe you can. You know the top teams in from the bigger conferences, but the automatic qualifies is it's just, it is what it is.
It's just out there for people to discuss and.
Dan C: Joe Bernard's a professor here in town. if you're gonna go after his job, man, and you gotta be careful. You gotta be careful. He teaches classes in Bracketology and that's how you know a St. Joseph's degree is. Very little.
Nate H: Which, where was that guy on that list? Okay, I'm blanking on it. Billy Lang. where is he on that list? He's curious. There again, I'm dragging out the, even though I said it, that's what this
Bill M: We can't stop talking about it, even though we don't wanna talk about it.
Nate H: Just that other guy that if he's anywhere near,any above the top quarter, it's, crazy.
I don't actually have that website up in front of me, so I have no idea. Nate.
Nate H: Nevermind. I shouldn't have asked a question. That's my fault Anyway,but it is, I, yeah. Last piece that Leanna pu is, I, and I am by no means a reporter or scoop person, but just cop and catch a tweet about, I'm not gonna use the name cuz I don't think it's right, but one of our Drexel incoming freshman, I guess is no longer part of the women's team.
And then just saying that she's in the transfer portal. maybe answer some questions about what went on there and leave it at that, cuz I don't really think we should go deeper than that, But anyway.
NEPA Pizza Aside and Wrap Up
Leon M: I was more curious about the, your statement about the Northeast Pennsylvania pizza, and I wanted to explore that a little bit because me and Bill were just in the, in that upstate, Wil Spar Scranton area not too long ago. week ago now, Bill. And,we'd gotten some roos. yeah. And what's your best Northeast Pennsylvania pizza place?
Nate H: What were you doing up there? Just outta curiosity.
Leon M: my wife's, family's from up that neck of the woods.
Nate H: Oh wow. Okay. Yeah, no, my wife's from Hazleton, so I know that we strong Northeastern PA to Jesse, from Hazleton originally. And, sometime I like to have him on here to talk I nascar and I didn't watch the race today, but and it looked like Bill Treichel took a tour. Track house while he was down there.
So any you guys get a ch even if you hate nascar, he'll take you on the floor of the shop and show you around. it was really cool. I'd never done that before. but I'm not an expert up there. But yeah, we got REOs, I got, or I got it on Saturday and then the place right across the street, I forget the name already actually, like REOs a little better.
Yeah, something like that. yeah. But now they're known for that. There's places all over that area and different, I, again, I'm not like a tray. You can get a pie. different types of sauces. It's crazy.
Leon M: Yeah, I know it's whole different type of, pizza. if you don't know what you're getting and you go there and get pizza, you're, it's gonna be, it's gonna be a little bit of a surprise. And some people do get disappointed cuz the white pie is white pizzas like a grilled cheese sandwich.
In the end of the day, let's be honest.
my wife likes that. We got one of those, but no. Interesting story. One of the last things we did before the pandemic. Was we drove to, Lehigh Valley Phantoms game in Bighamton and got pizza on the way up and goes right off 81. And then, and actually it tasted better cuz it was in the trunk of the car while we were in at the game.
Nate H: And it was like the St. Patrick's Day parade was, it was pretty neat up there in Binghamton and then, ate it in the parking lot afterwards and it was amazing. So that's my tip on Northeastern PA pizza is leave it in your trunk or put it in the fridge or something and eat it afterwards. It tastes better.
Dan C: that's funny cuz when we talk about Richmond, Pull back to that, like Richmond, not my favorite city in the world, but I can tell you where to eat there. Charleston's kind of, I like Charleston, but I can tell you where to eat there. and part of this is that I have a problem with eating, but clearly, but a lot of this is just, so much travel because of the DAC Pack, Because of the friendships I made through here and because the ro games is, for me, were always the best part, right? Like it was the travel and all of that was the best. We did wings in Buffalo when we did the day trip to Buffalo, that was like an 8:00 PM. We left Buffalo coming home at 11.
Wait, after the game we left 11 to come back to Philly to get here at, five in the morning or whatever it was, stuff like that. that's my memories. that's what I loved. And now I can go pretty much anywhere and find a good meal because I've been there before, Which is fun.
Nate H: Park when you guys go to DC for the tournament, do you, do they keep you down there for are you guaranteed at least one night of a hotel or do you go back and forth?
no, we go back and forth. So that's the downside with the tournament being located in dc you don't get that hotel experience, that we had at Charleston.
is that a choice you can , try to stay down there or is that something that's imposed upon you?
that's how it's been the past few years. we're gonna explore the possibility of seeing if we can, do some sort of hotel,that down there. cuz obviously I, I think the hotel exploring the city,that kind of goes with the building, the relationships with the other people that you're with.
Dan C: Totally agree.
Bill M: A hundred percent. Yeah. like Richmond, like we said, like none of us really loved Richmond, especially I think early on. I think towards the end, maybe 12 years deep, we found something that we actually like doing in Richmond, but for the first part of it, we're staying in a, crappy hotel, in a bad part of town.
And it was just, it was still a blast cuz you know, you're hanging out with all the, the students, just getting to hang out and bond and it's, you do lose that if you're just, Iyou get it on the bus I guess, but that's not quite the same as staying there.
Parke Simms: Yeah, exactly.
Nate H: Yeah. I hope they, one way or another can make. For you cuz Yeah, I think it, if I'm ranking, places I at least wanna be, it's the beltway especially, even one day, let alone multiple days in a row. So yeah, it'd be cool if they could set that up for you guys.
Dan C: Yeah, I would throw down for, for Dragons sponsorship of some t-shirts or something like that. But I don't know. The party house in DC is, I'm not buy all the damages. I'm not in on the dragons cats in Airbnb, but we gotta figure that out for.
Nate H: So Parker, I can't say enough of, Thank you for taking the time. I emailed Dan and in my day I started what? I woke up at four 30. And speaking, Northeastern PA took a bus to, where the hell was I? Forest City. Forest City. Ran a steam town marathon back into Scranton. Drove down, scooped up my kids and my wife in Hazleton.
My, my son had two baseball games at three and five. Apparently lost. They rip 11 to two. I had enough. I was like, I'm outta here. And it brought my daughter home and then my, I guess they lost 1211 and it serves the coaches right for late the game. So go so long and they should just cut it at seven.
Bill M: But I get Dan back me up by message him and I'm like, What are we doing this? Cuz this is important. I think having you on here and giving you a chance to advertise what the DAC Pack is doing is super important. So yeah, anytime you got some we can pass along. That's what we wanna do. Yeah, and I think too, we want. We wanna build a better connection between the alums and, the students and the younger alums. like I feel like we definitely have a section of us that all communicates on a regular basis. That's like definitely older alums at this point. But, connecting with you guys, connecting with, the prior DAC Pack presidents who just left, I think it's important to keep, everyone communicating together and, and, get back to games and.
And I'll hang and I'll hang out too. it's, that's what it's all about, man. It's it's the connections and and hopefully we can keep building that as this, as we progress here.
Dan C: Yeah, you got an open invite here, right? Iyou got totally. this is where we want you to be and, we wanna help you out wherever we can. anything that we can do, to Nate's point, we don't quite have enough time in our life probably to hover, so you don't have to worry about stepping on your toes too much.
But we, any, if any, there's any way we can help, we'd love to do it.
did we, Did N just say he ran a marathon today? Is
Dan C: Yeah, he slipped that in there, didn't
Leon M: Yeah. What was the little humble brag going on over there? But I ate salmon. That was my definition of being healthy for the day.
Nate H: Yeah. All start. You can run anywhere. I saw my wife no matter where you are. That's why I was asking where you're from cuz all these little towns up there like Carbondale and Olympian and God only knows where else. So it was cool. But but anyway, glad to have you park and at any time,
Parke Simms: Yeah, no, like I said, thanks. Thanks for having me on. , It was a good time.**