John Baylor--Telling Nebraska's Story One Set at a Time

 In this episode, we sit down with John Baylor, the unmistakable voice of Nebraska volleyball, former actor, longtime broadcaster, and recently named Sportscaster of the Year, for a conversation about the state he proudly calls home. Beyond the microphone, John is also the founder of the OnToCollege test preparation program, reflecting his passion for education and helping young people succeed. We talk about his remarkable career, the moments that have defined Husker volleyball, and why he believes Nebraska is the most beautiful state in the country. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:02

Nebraska. It's not just a place, but a way of life. It's 93 counties that are home to innovative individuals, caring to do, and a spirit that runs deeper than its purple story. It's a story that should be told. Welcome to 93, the podcast.

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Welcome to 93. I'm Mark Falson, your host for today's episode, brought to you by Nebraska's law firm, Rimble Latte. As you may know, this is a podcast about Nebraska, its communities, its number one industry agriculture, and the folks who make it happen. But in this episode, we're exploring Nebraska through the voice of someone who has spent decades telling its stories, sometimes point by point, set by set, to living rooms, pickup trucks, tractors, and small town bars across Nebraska. Our guest is a successful business person and the unmistakable voice of Nebraska volleyball. For more than 30 years, he has narrated some of the most electric moments in Husker sports history. We're going to have a conversation about what makes Nebraska such a special place, why the state produces not just great teams, but great people and great communities. John Baylor, welcome to 93, the podcast. Tell folks who I'm sure everyone knows who you are, but want to give folks a little background on yourself.

SPEAKER_02 1:25

John Baylor, right-handed, 5'10, brown hair, blue eyes, born in Lincoln, Nebraska. Came back after leaving for what I thought would be for good in uh sixth grade when I was 27 years old for what was supposed to be about a year or so, but here I still am.

SPEAKER_01 1:43

So you left Lincoln in sixth grade? Where'd you go?

SPEAKER_02 1:46

Uh went to live with my mother outside of Boston.

SPEAKER_01 1:48

Okay. So you're out in Boston. Where'd you go to college? Stanford out in California. Aaron Ross Powell And what fancy pants degree did you get from Stanford?

SPEAKER_02 1:55

Oh, international relations.

SPEAKER_01 1:56

Just because I wanted to impress people. Aaron Ross Powell And do you use that today?

SPEAKER_02 1:59

No. I was of the belief that you major in what you're interested in, and then life will take care of itself. And you just kind of keep doing that throughout your whole life. And that worked out pretty well for me. But no, did I get any pragmatic skills that I apply every day? Um other than my writing skills, I guess improved marginally. But uh no.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

No interest in going to the uh United Nations serving in some capacity?

SPEAKER_02 2:26

I did learn about the Foreign Service when I was at Stanford, and it I thought to myself, that's like one of the few careers I realized I don't want to pursue. So I did it because I I always wanted to be bilingual. That didn't work out. I always wanted to uh learn about economics because I thought I should do a little bit of finance in my life at some point, and that gave me a flavor of that. And then there was history and political science as well. So it seemed to be kind of a catch-all. If I had to do it over again, I'd probably just major in history.

SPEAKER_01 2:54

Do you have family?

SPEAKER_02 2:55

Ah, yes. I have a wife and I have five kids now. I've uh adopted two, and so we have a total of five, and we're the Baylor seven.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

Oh, congratulations. That's awesome. So I feel like I'm in the presence of a legend. You were recently named Sportscaster of the Year for Nebraska by the National Sports Media Association. Tell us about that award.

SPEAKER_02 3:13

Aaron Powell It's really gratifying. I had no idea how it worked, having never been nominated to my knowledge previously, nor having voted for it. I really to this day not exactly sure how it works, although I annually hear of others winning the award, and I was just flattered to be considered and and really gratified to be chosen because you know I'm probably in the twilight of my career at this point, and I get to go to this weekend in North Carolina in late June and meet all these big shots, well, all of these state uh award winners in the sports casting.

SPEAKER_01 3:42

I mean it's some famous people. I I I looked at some of the past recipients, not only Nebraska but nationwide. I mean, this is the creme de la creme of sports broadcasting.

SPEAKER_02 3:50

Yeah, it's uh it's a a great group to be considered a part of, that's for sure. And people have been so kind about it. And uh I, you know, if if I was ever starving for attention, I have been feasting ever since that award was announced. But I just thought to myself, what was it about this past year? Did I did I uh have fewer dangling participles or did I have more uh subject firm agreement this year than ever in the past? Or I I think it might be something that uh perhaps those who do vote thought maybe it was time.

SPEAKER_01 4:24

So can you actually diagram a sentence? You just you just described you just described how to do that.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Well you have to. My dad was a lawyer, you gotta learn how to diagram a sentence. That's what we all used to learn to do.

SPEAKER_01 4:33

Do they still teach that? Very little.

SPEAKER_02 4:34

That's what I thought.

SPEAKER_01 4:36

How'd you get into radio?

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Well, I was 24 years old, and I volunteered for a layoff uh at a bank on Wall Street because during those two years after college I realized banking uh was not for me, but I also realized law was not for me. I just assumed I was gonna be a lawyer, probably go to Omaha at some point and maybe get into politics. It was a really vague idea. There was no real thought to it, but that was just kind of something floating in the back of my mind. But then I get to Wall Street and I worked for a company called Bankers Trust and saw what uh folks in banking do and then got involved in a few deals very peripherally, so I learned sort of firsthand what lawyers do, and I realized I'm not gonna be a great lawyer. Uh so then I was kind of sort of untethered, now what? And so I tried to be an actor in Los Angeles for a few years. And while there, I met someone in a play I was in who was doing local cable TV, and he said, our sports caster just left. You might be interested. I said, How much does it pay? He said, Nothing. So I thought I uh tried out for it. I don't think there was any competition, and so that's how it all started because I always loved sports growing up. I was always announcing sports when I was in a baseball game or I was playing basketball. I was always calling the game either out loud so everyone could hear it or in my head. So it was a natural. I just kind of thought you weren't supposed to be able to do things that were fun. You're supposed to do things that were kind of impressive, like law and medicine. But again, being untethered at age 24, I started trying things. And and uh I guess I should say that there was a master plan. The master plan was gonna be a high school teacher. I realized at 24 that I loved high school. I thought I could, I'd really love that life, coaching, teaching, uh, and uh probably back on the East Coast uh where I went to high school. And um but I thought to myself, what's the rush? I'm 24. I mean, I can go be a teacher, I'm 29. So I got five years here, and so I thought, I'll go out to Los Angeles, try to be an actor, and when I'm there, you know, things happen and I needed a survival job. So I created my own test preparation company. It was purely to pay for my not particularly lucrative acting or sports casting house.

SPEAKER_01 6:41

So you created that company when you were in California? Correct. Okay. Let's go back. I I did not know you tried to be an actor.

SPEAKER_02 6:47

Very few people do. That's which I think is illustrative of my success.

SPEAKER_01 6:53

Did you did did you get any roles or either on commercials or anything?

SPEAKER_02 6:57

I was on a Spanish champagne commercial. Well, I got it to tell us about that. Anthony Anthony Banderas, and uh he doesn't say he was on a commercial with John Baylor, but I say I was on with him, and and Sharon Stone was on it.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 7:10

And they said it was gonna play in the Super Bowl, and I kind of walked behind them, but I was part of a crowd. I nearly got this Gillette uh shaving commercial, trust me, because I've had like zero dough, and I really wanted this, which is why I forget it was so painful. Uh, but anyway, like I was gonna be one of the faces that morphs during the commercial. But um, as far as I was in a movie that Todd Bridges from Different Strokes starred in, and I was ambulance driver number two. I think the answer to your question is really no. I didn't know.

SPEAKER_01 7:39

Did you get your screen actors guild card? No, I didn't. Any residual checks arrive in the mail just no?

SPEAKER_02 7:45

I gave it two years, Mark, and I'm really glad I did. It was kind of my equivalent of going to law school, which I no longer needed to do because I wasn't gonna be a lawyer. And I needed to get it out of my system because I would go to movies and I'd think I could do that. Because I had done quite a bit of acting in high school and college. And so uh it was really important for me firsthand to experience what that life is like. And um, you know, it was tough, you know. And I'm I'm just more of someone who revels in linear progression and sort of um regimentation of some kind. I'm gonna struggle if I ever go cold turkey and retire. I I need productivity. Like, you know, the third day of a vacation, I'm kind of like looking for something other than hanging out on the sand. So uh acting and that mentality don't work particularly well together.

SPEAKER_01 8:32

So that sport, first uh broadcasting job you got in California, what uh what sport, what team?

SPEAKER_02 8:40

I uh I got a job with Continental Cable Vision in Carson, California, and I would call the Carson banning football games. Abdul Mohammed played in former husker in that game. That game used to be at night, they had to move it during the day because it was not always particularly safe at night. Uh I did quite a bit of high school football. Uh a lot of the Torrance games, South Torrance, East East Torrance High School, Torrance High School, forgetting another, but the other North Torrance High School. I was like the Torrance High School nickname, the Tartars. She's an Asian warrior. Um big, big graphic design outside of their gymnasium. Um, and so I was doing that. I I did a couple volleyball matches, Cal State Dominguez Hills volleyball matches. I did quite a bit of Cal State Dominguez Hills men's and women's basketball. All this was TV, and it was like once a week, and it's LA, so they were able to get pretty big people to do um color commentary with me.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

So Ron um He's so big that you don't remember his name.

SPEAKER_02 9:41

Such a great guy. I can't think Ron Pitts, I can think of Ron Pitts um was my color commentator for a whole season in football. We did the Friday night uh high school game. And he's a former Green Bay Packer, Buffalo Bill. His dad was Elijah Pitts, played for UCLA. He became quite a good friend uh at the time. And I would just felt, and I spoke to a couple big shots in sports casting out there at the time, that if you were gonna really make it, you can't just be here working intermittently. You needed to get regular repetition. And so I thought I need to go to a small market. And if I'm gonna go to a small market, why don't I go back to my one of my childhood homes of Lincoln, Nebraska? So I came back in August of 1993.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

What how did you start calling volleyball?

SPEAKER_02 10:22

So I started in August of '93 uh in KLIN radio for$1,200 a month and$75 a game. And I called high school football, basketball. And that first year I got to do Husker women's basketball and Husker Baseball. And uh that spring, Bill Byrne, then the athletic director, comes to Jim Rose, my boss, and uh my the owner, Lisa Warner, and says, Look, we really like what you're doing, producing football and men's basketball, and actually producing and announcing women's basketball and baseball. And there's one other sport that gets broadcast on radio, and we want you to do it as well. That was volleyball, which KFR had at the time. And I'm not sure if KFOR walked away from it or if Bill Byrne initiated and said we wanted everything under one roof. Either way, Jim Rose said, sure, but John Baylor is gonna call the games. And uh Terry Pettiket went gets wind of this and apparently was not thrilled with the idea because KFOR had a really good announcer at the time. And he's, you know, many of us are averse to change. And uh Jim really pushed, and I thank him to this day, because he said, All right, we'll do the games. We're not gonna have a broadcaster from another station on our air. We we need our own guy, and that's gonna be John Baylor. And he used to call volleyball matches at Stanford, and he definitely called volleyball matches at UC at Cal State's Dominguez Hills. Well, I attended matches at Stanford. Jim Jim Rowe stretched the truth a little bit.

SPEAKER_01 11:47

That's shocking.

SPEAKER_02 11:48

Terry Pettett said, This better work out, and uh kind of stormed out of the office. He's become a dear friend. I think Terry Pett is brilliant, frankly. And um, not just a great coach. And um, about seven years later, again, let's hope this story is true. They see each other at Firethorn, and uh Terry Pettit comes up to Jim and says, uh Did did John Baylor ever call matches at Stanford? And Jim goes, I don't think so. And he goes, That's what I thought. But but Terry said, but he definitely worked out.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

So how do you prepare for the games?

SPEAKER_02 12:22

I create the I get what I call big rosters. So I get the the rosters that are available on the website and I blow them up so that the names are big, and then you have the their size, heights, and um and their hometowns and what year they are, what position they play, and then I just fill it in by hand from then on. A lot of guys have most everything pre-typed, and I handwrite it out um nearly every game, just reinforce, reinforce. I mean, everybody has to handwrite or type. I'm uh again, there's the research is very clear. If you write it out, you remember it much better.

SPEAKER_03 12:54

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 12:55

Uh but some guys type everything out, including, you know, um how many kills the player averages per set, uh, average attack percentage per set if they're a middle buck or a front row player, how many blocks per set they're they're averaging. Um and so I put down those stats, but I always look for kind of the human interest stuff, and so I'll write that that down as well. And that takes minimum two hours a match, but for a big match, I'll I'll spend at least twice that amount.

SPEAKER_01 13:18

Do you watch film?

SPEAKER_02 13:20

Yeah, it's so much easier now than it used to be. In the old days, you show up and you've never seen these people before, and you have to go find a trainer or an assistant coach and say, okay, who's who, who's playing? I got the roster here, and I've I got the stats, but I don't have any. And then I saw their photo, their headshot on the website, but I've got no idea. Well, this is before the website. I started actually before the internet. So I didn't even have that. I just had the roster. So I had to figure out what they looked like, and then for the next 10 years, all I had was uh the headshot. Well, then something called YouTube was invented. Well, now no announcer should ever arrive at a match or a game without knowing exactly the names of every player because you can just watch the prior match, you just call it in your head. I mean, I called the Supernova's Dallas Pulse match last night. I just watched the match from a week ago, turn down the volume. I just called it for 45 minutes as when the game started last night. I've had all the names perfectly.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Do you travel with the team? The Huskers I do, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Now nearly every match, uh, there's such a large travel party now that sometimes they don't have room for the broadcast.

SPEAKER_01 14:20

How about practices? Do you go to most practices? In spirit.

SPEAKER_02 14:24

But uh on the road, I try to get to one or two because I like to show off my uh digging skills, but uh my pepper skills. But I need to go to more. I've just been to a lot over the years. And and also on the road, it's just a great time for me to catch up. You got five kids, three are out of the house, two are at home, and um you run a business with 15 employees, you get behind. And so if I find myself in a East Lansing Hilton Garden Inn, I just hunker down and I just hammer.

SPEAKER_01 14:52

Aaron Powell So you've obviously been there for every critical moment in uh Nebraska volleyball history, but is there one particular match or moment that stands out for whatever reason that you said that that's the one or that's these two?

SPEAKER_02 15:07

Well, the years when my two daughters were ball girls, they both are ball girls from fifth grade through eighth grade stand out because I would just look down and they were just in heaven. Um but sure, I I you know the 2008 regional final against Washington, Nebraska's down two love, wins the third barely, the fourth set, we're up 24-21, then we're behind 25-24, it's over, season's over. Nope, come back and win the fourth, then we're down nine to three in the fifth, season's over. Nope, we're up twelve to nine, nearly lost it, come back and win a deuce game. It's the greatest comeback. It's one of the most incredible matches. And so few people saw it, it wasn't on TV, and so few people listened to it because it was the West Coast and it finished after 10 o'clock out there. And then five days later, we're in Omaha against Penn State, which in 2008 had not lost a set. Forget about a match, a set the entire match. They were the reigning national champions, hadn't lost a set the entire season, excuse me. This is the final four. And it goes to a fifth set. And the Huskers are up ten to eight at uh I think it was called Century Link Arena at that time, and uh did not pull it out. But that those are great moments. There have been so many. It's just there's nothing like a fifth set for Nebraska volleyball in December for drama. I just I can just feel the state just kind of leaning in, and just I know many of them are watching it on TV, but I'm hoping many of them have the volume down. Whoever is listening to me just leaning in because uh these are moments that you remember.

SPEAKER_01 16:33

Why is Nebraska the volleyball state? How did that happen?

SPEAKER_02 16:36

A confluence of reasons. One is we don't have any professional distractions. That's true for all the Oscar sports, obviously. Uh professional sports are really um new in town, and we don't have any four major professional leagues represented in our in our state. But um in the 1970s, Terry Padett, who's I think largely an introvert, uh decided he was gonna be not just a head coach but an evangelist for his sport. And part of the reason was the population here wasn't gonna support a nationally competitive program unless they started training players. This is a brand new sport. I mean, you grew up in Waverly. I grew up in in Lincoln a little ahead of you. I I'd never heard of volleyball, and certainly no one played volleyball. And then when I moved back here in 1993, and like it's a big sport, like I mean I mean, that was just 20 years, less than that. It went from invisible to a really big girl sport in in the state. Well, that was Terry Pettett, uh going to every Sortoma Club, going to every Elks Club, and talking about it and putting on coaches' clinics. So all these young phys ed teachers or young English teachers at Ogallala High School or Burwell High School are suddenly assigned to this sport that they never asked for because they don't know how it's played. Suddenly are meeting with the Husker coaches, which is really teaching them exactly how to run a slide and how to play a defense and how to coach setting. Next thing you know, every year we've got two or three impact players. I mean, every year we had five or six players from the state, but two or three impact players for a perennial top ten program. Well, that's the the that's the the youth movement, uh, the training of players that Terry Pettit really got got rolling. Um beyond that, I think in this state, Mark, you know, at least as well as I there's this sense that we may not be as respected as we should and as we want to. And so we maybe take things a little more personally when when we're represented uh to the public. And when we see our state on the jersey, uh we take it a little more seriously. So the fans took it more seriously, not just the football program, but any program uh and when they're competitive and you know that they just really jump on board more than any other program in the country, perhaps. And so the same is true for volleyball because it really at the time was no female equivalent. So you really you got that, it was it was special. You know, we had men's basketball for sure, and on top of football and baseball was always occasionally competitive, and then all of a sudden there's this women's sport that uh competing for national championships, so it really caught our attention. So I think the the end the best answer to your question, which has a lot of nuances to it, is the Huskers. The Husker program is the reason volleyball is so important in this state, in that every year they have a chance to win a national championship. Many years they are the only program in the athletic department that does. So when volleyball season ends, you have to wait nine more months. I mean, all the other teams can be competitive, they're exciting, you go to the games, you get but other than this men's basketball team right now, which I guess has a chance, it's not really you know, bowling. There's bowling and a track and field, maybe. I understand you got to build track and field to either win conference championships or national championships, which makes no sense to me. It's either or. I would think one and then the other, but no, apparently it's either or and we've always built to win conference championships, and I'm not sure why. But it's really bowling and and um and uh volleyball. So it's because they've been at the pinnacle for so long, and the the program, the Huskers in general, mean so much to Nebraskans that I think it just continues to grow. But you can't underestimate the stadium match, you can't underestimate the Devandy Center, you cannot underestimate the Big Ten network. You can't I think the the radio network has had a big part of it as well. And Nebraska Public Media has had a big deal. I mean, 1980s they started broadcasting it. So I see it's nuanced, but if the program was average, we would not be the volleyball state.

SPEAKER_01 20:35

If you weren't calling volleyball but were calling another sport, what's your second favorite sport to call?

SPEAKER_02 20:41

Baseball. I mean it's the sport I know the best. I I mean I should have played college baseball, and then if you play college baseball, who knows what's gonna happen. I mean, I was I'm so vain about my baseball skill from years ago that's what what position? I remember I'd be watching Salt Dogs games and thinking I could play better. Uh but uh I played second base, third base, shortstop. Yeah, I had all the tools. And I just as I tell my my students now, when you try your hardest, you set your you make yourself vulnerable and you set yourself up potentially for failure, and it really hurts temporarily. But you always have the reassurance that, well, I did try my best, but if you never try your hardest for something it at least retroactively you realize you really cared about, that really hurts forever because you never know what could happen. Well, I grew up at a time there was no select, I mean there was sort of midget baseball, there was no like 60 games in a summer, and I was always one of the better players, but I didn't realize I wasn't competing against these guys. Right. I was competing against a bunch of guys from Texas and California and Florida, playing nine months, you know, twelve months a year. And so I got to Stanford, my baseball career lasted ninety minutes, and that hurt.

SPEAKER_01 21:53

So you actually tried out for the team? Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:57

What do you think? I'm gonna watch other people do something. The next person who watches other people do something they love is not a human.

SPEAKER_01 22:05

I haven't been to Stanford's baseball stadium, but I'm told it's it's sunken below ground level and just absolutely beautiful. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 22:11

It's called the Sunken Diamond. Yeah. It's beautiful. Yeah, we were there in '85 playing, and I was uh I wasn't calling that game. I called a bunch of Stanford baseball games, but uh I was watching it from the third base side, and I remember this double switch that John Sanders pulled. It made no sense. And I didn't know at the time anything about John Sanders, the Husker baseball coach. I learned a lot more later when I became one of the voices of the program. But he literally pulls a double switch, uh, which you don't do um unless you the guy coming in to pitch has been warming up. Well, he did this later in his career too. He'd he'd pull like the first baseman. I forget it's the catcher. No, it was the catcher who came into play relief pitcher. Well, he hadn't been warming up. Well, couldn't throw strikes. You know, suddenly you walked a bunch of players and the whole game changed. But uh that was, I believe, uh 85. But uh yeah, it's a gorgeous spot. And when I was at Stanford, they won two national championships, so they did okay without me.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Right. So your trademark phrase in calling volleyball is kaboom, would you agree? Yes. What do you do can you recall when you started using that?

SPEAKER_02 23:12

Not really. I'm thinking 2018-ish, probably Michaela Fecky. So she finished in 18. I bet it was like right on 2015. See, I mean, 2015 I would say was the dawn of what is the current golden age of Nebraska volleyball. Prior to that, six consecutive seasons, zero Final Fours. Since 2015, 11 seasons, seven Final Fours, but there's more than that, two national championships. But there's more than that. Because in the last, since our last title, 2017, I know it feels like a long time, but for most teams, that's not very long for a national championship. So we're now talking eight years. And in those eight years, we've played for three national championships, but then there are two other what I call de facto national championship matches. There was the 2024 National Semi against Penn State, and we're gonna the winner gets Louisville on the championship, and they were gonna be without their best player, Anna De Beer, who was injured in the national semi. So this is effectively for the national championship. Huskers are up 22 to um 16 in the fourth and cannot close it out. And Penn State, two days later, goes on to win the title. Well, then there's last year against Texas AM. I mean, there was no reason AM should have been in our bracket. We're the number one seed. For some reason, we got to play the number four seeds bracket anyway. So we get the best number three seed. I can't even believe AM was a number three seed. So, but I guess the number one seed, we should have played the weakest number three seed. So we get someone, a team that should have been a number two seed, anyway. They were somehow thought of as the weakest number three seed. I mean, I've I've turned the page, I've moved on. And that was for the national championship, as you see, because AM just mowed down the Pittsburgh and Kentucky in the final four. So if you consider those two de facto national championship matches and those three others, all of which we have lost, four of which have gone five sets. In the last eight years, we've played five national championship matches and have just come up a little short on all five.

SPEAKER_01 25:01

It's pretty amazing. What's uh segue into your business? You mentioned you started that when you were in California, on to college. What does it do?

unknown 25:08

Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 25:08

It helps teenagers catch their dreams by jumping their ACT scores. And uh if you are supposed to, based on historical testing, get a 17 instead you get a 24, if you're supposed to get a 21 instead you get a 27, if you're supposed to get a 24 instead you get a 31, it's a different future, both financially and in terms of opportunity. So it's the greatest teen dream catcher a teenager could ever have. I mean it's the best paying job you ever have. That's why I like to say it test day is payday. And so it just amazes me and saddens me uh that so many don't take it seriously, and then apparently so many adults in their lives, parents, um, guardians, maybe even teachers, don't take it particularly seriously. Because if you just get a 25, you can go to Wayne Pruer Shadron for free tuition. That's life changing. If you get just a 28, you can go to Kearney for free tuition, and they'll give you$2,000 free housing. That's life-changing. If you get just a 30, you can do the same at Omaha, and if you get just a 32, you can do the same at UNL. And that's just based on merit. So that's for anyone you know related to Warren Buffett, for example. No problem. Um, it's just formulaic for the most part, grades and scores, grades and scores. And those are the magic numbers. 25 for Wayne Prue and Shadron, 28 UNK, 30 UNO, 32 UNL. But if you're the 46% of Nebraska teenagers who qualify for free-reduced lunch, you're going to qualify for the second bucket of money called need-based aid. And it's everything I just said times four. Because if you can just get a college-ready ACT, which is really a 22, but just to be safe, a 23 or higher, now colleges are motivated to meet whatever your needed is. And that could vastly surpass just free tuition. Now you're getting free food, now you're getting free lodging or dormitory, presumably housing. Uh, and then of course there's there's fees and books. So it just breaks my heart when we don't have as systemic within our K-12 educational establishment the meas the message that guys, this is life-changing. Your GPA matters as well, but it's just a one-half day deal, take it four times. So four half days of your life, four mornings of your life can change the trajectory of it. I mean, I can just give you countless examples. A young woman I know, boom, she's going to going to Yale. Score was a huge part of it. Uh, countless kids who worried about paying for college, and bing, it's it's covered. You know, the principal at at uh at rural high school, I love going to rural Nebraska high schools. I just I love it. Um anyway, the principal said, yeah, this farmer came in one day. He was a dad, he recognized him as a dad. And usually when a dad shows up at a principal's office, it's not great news. And this dad takes off his uh his ball cap and says, uh, you brought in this here uh preparation program for this IECT that uh my daughter took. And he's like, Yeah, we brought in on to college, and uh did it turn out okay. And the farmer started crying and said that said that yeah, we didn't know how we were gonna pay for college, and now she's going to UNK for free tuition. And so that stuff gets me really juiced.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

So I I need to thank you because all three of my daughters took your class, and the amount of money that you saved my family certainly uh paid dividends, so very uh I'm very grateful for that. During COVID, if I'm not mistaken, some schools were dispensing with the requirement of ACT and SATs. Has that trend continued? What do you see as the future for those standardized tests?

SPEAKER_02 28:32

They're back. The pendulum has swung fully back. Selective colleges, which can afford to dictate what the admissions requirements are, have largely, not all of them, but said we want to see a test score. I mean, Brown, Dartmouth, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, MIT, like we got to see a test score because all these kids have four O's. We don't know what these grades mean. And then they were just getting so many students that just weren't ready. I'll just give you an example of UCSD, University of California, San Diego, which still is test blind. So you can have a perfect 36, and you send them the score, they will ignore it. University of California system is test blind. They will not consider, still test scores. It all started during COVID. Well, UCSD discovered that one out of seven of their freshmen could not do high school math, and one out of 13 of their freshmen could not do middle school math. And this is a selective public university that rejects 54 percent of its applicants. And now, Washington, the federal government's looking into this or congressional hearings into okay, public colleges and universities, and even privates, because they get all sorts of federal funding. What is the status of these freshmen you're admitting? And to what extent can they even handle basic high school, not to mention college-level math? So University of California, San Diego is attacking this, and to their credit, they did a report on it, publicized the report, and you know, took a lot of public hits for it, but they're at least acknowledging it, and now they're setting up all these remedial classes for these kids. Well, if you got an ACT score, that's gonna be avoided. But um, we will always have test optional because so many colleges require tuition to be financially viable. And the last thing you want to do is put up barriers to keep kids from applying. So you make it test optional so kids will consider applying, and then maybe you can talk them into attending and and uh so you make it test optional. Uh however, um test optional only applies to admissions. It does not apply to scholarships. So University of Nebraska, if you want to play pay full price, no one's gonna stop you. Just give them a high school diploma. Uh, if you want to go to um Doan, no one's gonna stop you uh if you want to pay full price. But if you want a big discount, give them a number because that'll dramatically improve your chances of winning. The vast majority of kids who win scholarships submit scores.

SPEAKER_01 30:55

Aaron Powell Can you explain to our listeners how college funding works? I'm being somewhat facetious, right? It's the the discounts off of tuition and there's sort of the budget and the real budget as far as revenue actually coming in. What what's the future of higher ed look like that?

SPEAKER_02 31:10

A lot of schools are in precarious financial situations, especially the liberal arts schools, especially the lesser-known smaller liberal arts schools, and they're closing at a rate of about one per week in this country, closing, merging, selling. Uh so if you're an architect, figure out how to repurpose like Dana college type campuses because they're gonna they're just gonna be coming available. These are big swaths of land with big buildings. I mean, what do you do with these? Uh so I think there's gonna be there's huge opportunities. Uh but for a lot of communities there's a lot of risk because a lot of these rural communities with these small large colleges depend economically on these colleges, and they're closing. Anyway, um it's it's a it's a tough time because um you know the college going rate is down, the skepticism towards the value of the experience is going down, the interest in the trades and the salaries associated with the trades and and then sort of the uh STEM fields are at least short term more alluring than the salaries you're gonna get if you just major in straight liberal arts like I did uh years ago. So it's a it's a precarious time, but my opinion is um critical reasoning is never gonna go out of style. That uh you know some people say you're not gonna lose your job to AI, you're gonna lose your job to someone who understands how to use AI. So if you can critically reason, if you can communicate effectively, if you can just think on your feet, can you speak well, write well, you're gonna be fine. Now, if you could also design buildings and and uh understand engineering, you're gonna be in a better spot. But uh I I think those skills are going to be timeless. Make no mistake, these AI is a real threat uh to uh so many white-collar jobs, so you really need skills and knowledge to distinguish yourself. And it's not just AI, it's globalization is also a threat to uh workers and future workers. So, where do you typically get skills and knowledge? Two and four-year college degrees affordably, on time, certified in the trade or serve our country in the United States military.

SPEAKER_01 33:22

You mentioned that one of the things you like to do in your business is go to rural Nebraska high schools. I assume you get to travel the state a little bit as part of your being an ambassador of the volleyball program. What's your favorite part of Nebraska other than Omaha or Lincoln? You get one. I love Northeast Nebraska.

SPEAKER_02 33:39

Um Hardington's beautiful up there. Uh it's just such a gorgeous town. Laurel Concord is a cool area. Um it's just the role I I just get up there a lot. We have a lot of schools that I've worked with for a lot of years up there, but you just can't beat Nebraska. I've got this theory for why Nebraska is so beautiful. You can see. I'll have visitors who come here and like, I had no idea Nebraska was so beautiful. And I'll say, You're from Pennsylvania. You're surrounded by trees. You can't see. That's one reason you love the ocean, right? You go to the ocean, you can see. It's the same thing, it's just flat water, but it people are amazed by the ocean. I gotta get near the ocean. Well, everything, if you're on the east coast that's west of the shoreline, is tree-lined or skyscrapers. You can't look far into the distance. And then you land in Lincoln or Omaha, and you're like, and people don't realize what it is. And then when you mention it, you're like, yeah, you can just look and a far away, you can see the horizon, and it's moving. I kind of I think that reaches us deeply. Just get off I Eiti. I always thought I had to go to, I don't know, Lowong, Pro Bong, um, Laos uh or Cambodia. I went on a trip there once and saw this, you know, unbelievable rural parts of Asia. And I thought, I gotta come back here and write the great American novel. And then I went up to Valentine. Right. I don't need to go anywhere. This is a stunning place. And I the state, and I I think we either don't fully appreciate it or we don't want other people to know about it.

SPEAKER_01 35:13

I think there's a little bit of that. Like yeah, it's kind of a hidden gem, but maybe let's not tell too many people about it. And let's not build any housing.

SPEAKER_03 35:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 35:20

I mean, these these towns are worried about their sh their schools and having to merge. Build some housing. And but apparently that the free market doesn't take care of that. Uh but as far as the the marketing as a vacation destination, I think everybody would win if we did a little bit more of that.

SPEAKER_01 35:36

Aaron Powell Just listen to the radio recently and I heard a voice that sounded distinctly familiar. Uh I am a Nebraska corn farmer, this voice said. Uh was that you? It was. How did that uh campaign come about?

SPEAKER_02 35:49

The Nebraska Corn Board contacted me and they said we're looking for a local voice that's recognizable but not too recognizable, that's respected. And uh we thought of you and we wonder if you'd be interested. And I said, I'm a Nebraska corn farmer. I'd be honored. And so I had to read for it, and they said, This sounds great. And they wanted something that sounded kind of like Paul Harvey.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

It does. It's great. So thank you. Yeah, job well done. Thank you. Yeah, I think uh again, those of us who know you from volleyball and everything else, it jumps right out. But I think for folks who are don't listen to volleyball, I mean it's just you have a great radio voice, obviously.

SPEAKER_02 36:25

I was touched. I was uh, you know, I I just uh people say I romanticize small town Nebraska, and maybe I do, but man, if I had grown up in small town Nebraska, I'd be a scratch golfer. I would be a 210 average bowler, and I'd go home and uh, you know, people would all know my name. And I don't I it's not perfect, but you can have a really wonderful childhood. I'm just speaking an example. There's a girl who's a young woman who's a sophomore at Yale right now. She went to Ainsworth High School. I mean, we have such amazing opportunity in this state. And don't you think we have just more per capita famous, um, high-impact people from the state than our population would suggest?

SPEAKER_01 37:11

It uh it never ceases to amaze me. Even folks that I went to college with in Nebraska, the things, the amazing things they've gone on to do. I mean, I it's like What is it? Yeah. What do you think it is? Uh I do think part of it is the work ethic, which is driven in part by rural Nebraska, growing up on a farm, small community. Uh I think that can exist in Lincoln as well because a lot, let's face it, that last generation of folks in Lincoln and Omaha, their family comes from that farm, so it's still instilled in them. And it's also what you mentioned earlier, which is I won't say it's a chip on our shoulder, but you know what? It's pretty special being from this place, and we're going to do our darndest to represent it well.

SPEAKER_02 37:49

I think also we grow up with a sense of agency here. Our schools aren't 4,000 in a high school, they're 400, and that's kind of a sizable one. That's like a C1. You know, you know, that's a that's like one of our bigger ones. So you can have an impact, you can feel like a somebody. Well, it's kind of like the John Stockton effect. I mean, if he doesn't go to Gonzaga, if he goes to UCLA and he's a backup, he's never a Hall of Fame guard in the NBA. But because he played every single possession for four years at Gonzaga and took him to a you know the NCAA tournament, he gets the NBA. He's like, I expect to succeed. And you go to one of these small-town Nebraska high schools, you don't have to, but you can absolutely have real agency. And then you get to one of the bigger universities often in the state, and you feel the same thing, and then you just carry that mentality with you the rest of your life. Next thing you know, you're 45 and you're you're a real somebody.

SPEAKER_01 38:39

Were you an early riser or a uh late-night uh owl? Late night. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 38:45

Now I've had to change because that's what fatherhood does.

SPEAKER_01 38:48

Do you have favorite restaurants around Nebraska again outside of Lincoln, Omaha, that you saw when you're in that town, like I gotta go? My favorite just got burned down.

SPEAKER_02 38:56

The black crow in Bianchi. Oh, yeah, yeah. So sad. Yeah. Not burned down. Let's just hope that Ray and his wife reopen it, but that's worth the trip. I think it's the best restaurant in the state. When they used to have lunches there, and Ray's getting up there, I guess he's like, forget the lunches. They first they cut it down to being open only five days a week, then like no more lunches. I'm like, come on. Anyway, I used to go down and teach at Wymore Southern. They were my first high school. So I approached these schools and I said, Hey, look, we're getting great results teaching ACT preparation to all these kids from Lincoln and Omaha. Why don't you let me come during the day and I'll teach all your college-bound kids? And Wymore Southern took me up on it. And then I realized the Black Crow was right there. So I remember calling up my wife one day, and it was a grim like February day. And I said, Guess what I'm doing right now? She goes, What I'm I'm at the Black Crow having lunch, and I'm having oysters on the half shell right now. It was just such an amazing boat. I think I stayed like two and a half, three hours. But that's how I built the businesses, uh, approaching schools in 2002, 2003, and said, Look what we're doing, teaching ACT prep to all these kids, packing, you know, big auditoriums on the weekends and at night. These are all Lincoln and Omaha kids. Why don't you let me come during the day? And a couple schools took me up on it and then more and more wanted me, and then they invented this thing called the internet, and that's how I grew it.

SPEAKER_01 40:18

John, one thing that we ask all of our guests, and you get one word. What is the one word that to you best describes the state in which you were born? Uh, where you were the voice of Nebraska volleyball, and now uh the voice of I'm a Nebraska corn farmer for the Nebraska Corn Board. What's your one word from Nebraska?

SPEAKER_02 40:36

I didn't prepare this, although you told me about it ahead of time. I'm gonna say um authentic, because uh Nebraskans can smell a con artist a mile away and and they've got particularly high standards. And if you're sneaky, if you're flashing your money around, uh if you're um uh uh if you're a little bit of a snake, uh it doesn't fly real well here. Whereas in other states, other places I've lived, it's like you know, those people are actually uh popular and high status. But here, you know, there's a just a sense that uh we're gonna be real, you know. On the other hand though, um, I think sometimes we miss out on uh real conversations with each other because there's uh there's an emphasis on um getting along. And uh, you know, we we're incredibly community oriented. You know, if someone has any tragedy, it's amazing how their neighborhoods neighbors all come out. Uh that's pretty unique to Nebraska as well. But uh, you know, I I I just think it's it's tough to be a fraud here. And uh anyone who's trying to cut corners is looked down upon. I think that's a a wonderful quality, and and we're real in that way with each other. But I think we could go further and um actually kind of revealing our our innermost thoughts, not to everybody, but to to our to our our our closest friends, and maybe other field people feel that they have that network. But I, you know, and when I'm in on the East Coast, I mean people kind of get to the deeper stuff a little sooner, whereas here things sometimes can stay on the everyone's nice and kind, and if you have any issues, they're there to help you. But you know, I I I don't know the innermost, I don't know, kind of important thoughts of some people that I've known for years and years uh around here. Whereas you know, you live in New York, if you're gonna have any sort of interaction with someone, pretty quickly you kind of know whether, you know, not just politically where they stand, but like, okay, where are some of their lines in the stand where the things that really matter to them? And maybe that's one reason students think, you know, sometimes students call me crazy because what's Mr. Baylor like? Oh, he's kind of crazy. Well, I'm I'm always making comments. I think I I find myself eccentric. I think that's a better word. But I make comments. My mom always said you can't fool kids, you can't fool dogs. And so I'll make comments. I'll just say, you know, like I'm I'm gonna be the mayor of Realville here. I'm gonna like tell you the truth. This is kind of this is this this is like real regret, or this is real, you know, belief. Like, you know, I think, you know, phones. I apologize, I apologize to kids all the time for the invention of phones. I apologize. I mean, I wish you had had my childhood because I I would never want yours. I mean, every day this comparison machine in your pocket, you know, cooing away at you to make you feel horrible about yourself. I mean, but a horrible legacy that our our generation, or I think it was the generation after mine that invented these things. But uh, you know, what a what a tough you know, adolescence was always tough for girls, and it's only worse now. And and um, you know, it's suddenly a lot tougher for boys than it used to be. I mean, growing up in the 70s as a boy. I mean, come on in Nebraska. I mean, what you just he just won the lottery. Anyway, um, so I think one reason I stand out a little bit when I teach and maybe even when I speak uh to adults is that I kind of say stuff that are you can tell it's real. And maybe that's some things, some of the things you heard today when I was talking to you is like when We're not here forever. It's like, you know, what are we in the nursing home and to still not know, you know, what really makes each other tick? Like, open up and you don't have to tell me, you know, you got a you got a uh I'm an intestinal disorder. That's not what I'm talking about. I don't need to talk about medical issues all the time, but you know, like like uh, you know, what's something that happened to you that really care about, or you know, how important was your dad to you, or uh what's something that really hurts, or you know, what would what would just bring you true joy in the next week? You know, just stuff that's that's um revelatory. And uh we got it in us because there's that realness and authenticity and demand for that from each other. But sometimes I think we let it stay at the at the surface level and we could go further.

SPEAKER_01 44:42

Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_02 44:43

Great to be here. Thanks, Mark.

SPEAKER_01 44:45

Folks, if you enjoyed this episode, consider subscribing on Apple, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app. Be certain to share it with someone as well. And please keep on listening as we release additional episodes on Nebraska, its great communities, Nebraska's number one industry, agriculture, and the people who make it happen.

SPEAKER_00 45:03

Thanks. This has been Nighty Three, the podcast, sponsored by Nebraska's law firm, Rembolt Ludke.