Ask the AD: September 8, 2023
Sep 08, 2023 | Athletics
Brian Smoller (BS): Hello and welcome to another edition of Ask the AD. Boy, we have got a lot for you today as we kick off this 23-24 athletic season. Director of Athletics, Gene Taylor, alongside I'm Brian Smoller, and Preston Koerner pushing all the right buttons, making sure that we are getting this to you coming up today. And we have a lot to cover, a lot of great questions. But before we get to that, let's start first a little bit of a sad note for us, the Wildcat family and the extended Wildcat family a little bit and that's the loss of Be Stoney here just the other day.
Gene Taylor (GT): Yeah, Be was tremendous to all of us. She was a great mentor to our student-athletes. She represented our student-athletes in so many ways, academically and awards and she's been around a long time. Coaches relied on her and it's a terrible loss. Be was battling with some health issues. So we're gonna miss her. But her impact on K-State Athletics, K-State student-athletes, and just our university as well. She was a faculty member, well-known faculty member. So our you know, thoughts and prayers to Michael and her family. And we're gonna miss her.
BS: Yeah, no doubt. A lot of great tributes already pouring in from student-athletes. If you're on social media at all, just you can see the impact that Be had and touch many lives beyond just her day to day stuff as well. Let's go out of that into some conference, we always try to lead this off with some conference news. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of big news out there from the Big 12.
GT: No, I think we settled in, obviously. It was a crazy summer again, with the addition first with Colorado and then with as they call it, the four corners schools Arizona, Arizona State and Utah. We had our first meeting with all those athletic directors of a couple of weeks ago in Dallas. And now we're just starting to work through the process, you know, future scheduling, and what's it going to look like? Are we how many basketball games are we going to play? The commissioner came out and talked about 20 basketball games, we're working through on the football scheduling. So it's really just about trying to figure out. And it's coming quick, you know, we had a little more time to plan with Cincinnati and those guys. We're gonna have to have this ready here pretty soon to get all that stuff out. But it's been good. And I think right now we're kind of in a calm place.
BS: Now we'll see. We always say that and then two months later. We're gonna get to some more scheduling questions here coming up. Let's jump right into our fan questions. The first one comes from @Joe_Bagley90. We would say this is from Twitter, but it's now called X. So we'll just go from X. Joe jumps in and says: "Status of the Nike deal?". Boy, this has been a hot topic this summer.
GT: Do you have any drums we could do? We could do a drum roll.
BS: Do you have anything to tell us?
GT: We do. We have decided to extend our relationship with Nike. We went through a great process. And will the details of that contract will be coming out over the next few weeks. But we are going to extend our relationship with Nike at this time.
BS: And I know that'll be met with cheers by most or maybe some groans. But that is where we're at. Nike has been a good partner for us over time.
GT: Absolutely, been with Nike a long time. And so it was a good process and I'm glad we went through the process. But obviously we want to continue our relationship with Nike.
BS: Alright, so Nike, obviously making uniforms. That's always usually a question we get. We did not get this time about uniform changes at all. But we did get to see some new uniforms for the K-State volleyball team and their latest match against Nebraska which was yet another electric environment over at Morgan Family Arena. 'Lit' as the kids say. From X the next question: "The Morg is such a neat place..." I don't know if that's where we're gonna run with.
GT: We're gonna stay away from that. We love the Morgan family. They did a great job in supporting them. But I think we don't want to shorten that.
BS: Yeah, that's right. "Any other plans for other events in the new volleyball arena?" This is from @hatingfrancisco hating Francisco.
GT: Right now, obviously, it's a new facility and we just want to try to live in it for a while before we do a lot of changes. We want to focus on volleyball in particular, let them figure out what their schedules are going to be like. But it's it's a great setting, you know. Could it be used for other other events and other opportunities? It probably could. But we got to just let volleyball get in there and live in there. Really understand from an operational perspective and our staff to really get used to the facility. So probably for the next year or so it's going to be primarily volleyball, and then we'll go from there.
BS: Also speaking of volleyball, from X, this comes from @CathyBuchanan: "Why are the season volleyball tickets general admission seating?". Of course, this was paramount this last match with Nebraska and a lot of red in the building.
GT: Cathy, it's a great question. And we had a lot of conversation about that before we went into the building. We just felt that we really wanted to, we knew there was going to be a lot of excitement for the building and a lot of fan interest. And sometimes when you sell reserved season tickets, your best seats don't go used. And when you do that, you've got your best seats in mid-court a lot of times sit empty, as they did an Ahearn even back in the day when we were there. So we felt in order to generate the energy in there. We wanted to go with general mission. Let's see how the season goes, again, try to live in it for a year and then we'll re-evaluate after this season. I know there was some a little pain about you know, standing in line and getting people in. I think that energy in there the last of first two volleyball games has been phenomenal. And we'll continue to evaluate it but I think for this year we'll stay with general mission clearly and then we'll see what goes in the future.
BS: Now the home schedule, by the way, for volleyball this year is absolutely loaded with teams in the Big 12 that are ranked or receiving votes, including BYU who right now leads the highest ranked team. It's in the top five and it'll be in Manhattan here coming up in a bit. So should be fun year. Got to check it out if you haven't already. Of course, volleyball was in Bramlage last year. One of our questions about facilities is about Bramlage. This comes from @AllThingsKstate from X yet again: "Is the plan to keep Bramlage the way it is, renovate it, or build a new arena at some point down the road in the foreseeable future?".
GT: I don't see a new arena anytime soon. I think Bramlage is a great facility. We have touched some some things, we've added some premium seating on the court side. We added when we did this shamrock zone, we added a club area up there, we've added some additional loge boxes. But right now we'll just kind of you know, like I said earlier with some of our fundraising, we'll give our donors a little bit of a break. But I'm sure we could go in there and find some opportunities to make Bramlage, you know, a little bit more user-friendly facility. But for now, we're gonna keep it the way it is. But I really don't see any time any in the near future, a new facility at all.
BS: Yeah, it seems like the footprint is a good fit for where it is.
GT: It's a perfect fit.
BS: All right, let's go to Facebook. Course, we've had tremendous support when it comes to facilities. We finished off the Building Champions campaign with Morgan Family Arena and the Morris Family Olympic Training Center and now kind of moving into a different phase of fundraising. And this question somewhat ties into that. This comes from Geoffry Hargis from Facebook where he asks: "Coaches have gotten pay raises. What about support staff such as athletic trainers, equipment managers, video staff, they all work just as hard and should be compensated as such." And I assume this to mean support staff for teams, you know. It's not just the head coach, it's the rest of the team?
GT: Yeah Geoffry, that's a great question. And I agree with it 100 percent. Our staff works extremely hard. And we do work every year. We actually have had the last three or four years an annual increase of about three percent across the board. And then we look at individuals and where are they from a market perspective? And do they need to go up at a foreign market if, as a staff, they're doing a great job. So we have given raises to a lot of our staff. And we know just like our coaches, we need to get our salaries up in all areas. And so as we continue to generate more revenue, whether it's through donations or season ticket sales, we will look to see how do we put those dollars back into our staff, because we have got great staff. We need to keep them and it's competitive just as it is for coaches. People come after our staff because they're talented. We need to do everything we can to keep them and salaries is a big part of that.
BS: Great question there from Geoffry. We stay with Facebook for the next question. It comes from Jason Bowersox, who asks: "I love the smoke and fireworks currently," (talking about football pregame here), "but could we also do something with the steel roller door? Even painting it purple or putting a powercat on it I feel might help it be less bland looking and stick out less compared to the rest of Vanier. This one, when I first saw it, I don't know about you, but my first reaction was 'I guess I never really thought about it.'
GT: That was exactly my reaction. You know, I look at it and there's so much going on when the team first comes out. I don't really focus on that. And most of the time, like during the day, that's rolled up because teams need to get in and out of there. But that's a great question. And I'm sure you know, our facility staff and our creative staff can look at that. And whether we can maybe put a mural on there just be a powercat probably makes some sense. And so maybe we'll take his advice and look into that.
BS: I know we talked about last year, the side of baseball that faces the stadium or faces the Morris Family Olympic Training Center about putting something up there to help balance out that metal building.
GT: Yeah. And we haven't finalized what we're going to do there. But again, it's dark, empty, you know, and just big and gray. And so those kinds of things, again, once you build a new facility, and it gets up we go, 'Oh we probably didn't think about that'. So we need to think about that. So those kinds of things as again, now that these facilities are done and they're built, we can go back and really begin to look at where can we touch them up. Where can we make them look a little more appealing if they don't. So we'll do that.
BS: We had one other fan post this and we'll mention only because he's sitting in here too, as well. Kenny Lannou is a big proponent of putting a powercat on top of Bramlage Coliseum for people that are flying in. And it seems kind of silly at first, but then you think about it, you're like well, I mean, recruits are flying in and fans.
GT: Yea. I've never been up on the top. I don't know how easy that is. I don't know if it's completely flat or we have, you know, air conditioning and stuff. It's a very big price tag. I know that. I've seen the price tag. So well, you know, baby steps.
BS: Baby steps. Yeah, as you said, not sure if it's a flat roof up there or not, Jason Brummett's head may have just exploded through that. By the way, can you give us a status on the airport? For fans that may want to know about getting access into Manhattan, Kansas. Obviously that has been a huge selling point for recruits and fans. Daily flights on American, where are we at?
GT: Well, from what our understanding is, and a couple of our staff members went out and visited with the folks out of the airport. You know, they're hopeful that they're going to get it done very, very soon. Obviously, we've got some teams that need to fly in here. Troy is not going to be able to come in this weekend. We obviously leave for Missouri next weekend. We're hopeful that by the end of, in the next couple of weeks that the airport will be maybe not open for commercial flights. But that the runway has been certified by the FAA and that we could maybe land and take our charter flights in and out of there. But we'll see. I mean, it's it's a process. It was much needed. You know, if it's another couple of weeks, we'll still be okay. But I think the commercial flights take a longer period of time for them to get runing. And so I don't know what date that will be open.
BS: Hopefully it gets up soon. I know that's been a topic or a point of focus for our fans and coaches, I'm sure as well.
GT: Absolutely.
BS: Back to Twitter, or X as it's now called, from @GTCat_EMAWdio: "Could we back fill the next two years of home and home series with Arizona" (talking football scheduling now) "in the non-conference with Wazzu or Oregon State to help those teams that are without a conference?".
GT: Well, it's another great question. And for the Arizona series, which is in 2024 and 2025, we're going to keep that as a non-conference opponent. So we're going to keep that one on our schedule. With Colorado and there are some other schools that have that issue that play right away in 24. So we'll look at where we can find schools. And obviously, you know, there are a lot of changes between you know, Oregon and Washington going to the Big 10. And what opened up for those schools. And so there's probably made some schools out there needing games because of the changes across the country. And I think we'll be able to find you know, the replacement for Colorado now that they're going to be on a conference opponent. But we are going to keep the Arizona as a non-conference opponent for 24-25.
BS: There you go a little bit more breaking news on this episode of Ask the AD. All right, wrapping up our segment today, couple of questions left. @ScottWildcat, we always got to get him in and he always asked great questions. This one: "We've talked future schedules for both football and basketball a lot. But when will we see the full schedule (with dates/times) for men's basketball and women's basketball?".
GT: Well, Scott, it's coming soon. We actually did talk about that on a recent Big 12 call. They are wrapping up some things you know. Their schedules have to go to our TV partners and TV partners have to figure out, you know, who's gonna get what game. They have done that. So now it's back in the conference office. So we anticipate the men's basketball schedule coming out in the next, you know, week or so. And then the women's probably a couple weeks later. So it won't be long before we get the full schedule coming up very, very soon.
BS: Yeah, should be fun. A great year with Coach Tang last season. Looking forward to this year and more of the same in Bramlage Coliseum. Should be a lot of fun. Make sure you get those tickets as they're going fast. Last question from Twitter/X: "Does Gene like to go fishing? If so is he a local lake guy or does he charter a trip and catch fat Marlins?". This is from @GrifftheDJ.
GT: Well, I'm not a big fish guy. I mean, I fished before. When I was in Maryland, obviously, it was pretty easy to get out and fish out there. And I've just never really got into fishing. My dad never was one of those guys. He was a indoor sports kind of guy. So that's where I was. But I guess if I were, I'd go get a fat Marlin and have somebody you know, bait my hook and put it in the water and just tell me when I needed to reel it in.
BS: There you go. Great question and was a little outside the box, Griff the DJ. And soon we'll be all wishing we were out on boats, chartering in the keys. And hey, it's part of the conference now. We're gonna be down in Florida.
GT: Exactly.
BS: Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it. Lots of good questions. Hopefully there's nothing breaking in the sense of the conference in the next few months. We got to do another one but looking forward to the next month and come back with more of these. And I assume in the meantime, you're always welcome to answer what you can.
GT: Absolutely. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate and thanks to the fans. Great questions this week, absolutely.
BS: All right. Big thanks again to Preston Koerner for helping putting this together. For Gene Taylor, for all of you out there, thanks for watching. I'm Brian Smoller. We'll catch you next time on Ask the AD.
Gene Taylor (GT): Yeah, Be was tremendous to all of us. She was a great mentor to our student-athletes. She represented our student-athletes in so many ways, academically and awards and she's been around a long time. Coaches relied on her and it's a terrible loss. Be was battling with some health issues. So we're gonna miss her. But her impact on K-State Athletics, K-State student-athletes, and just our university as well. She was a faculty member, well-known faculty member. So our you know, thoughts and prayers to Michael and her family. And we're gonna miss her.
BS: Yeah, no doubt. A lot of great tributes already pouring in from student-athletes. If you're on social media at all, just you can see the impact that Be had and touch many lives beyond just her day to day stuff as well. Let's go out of that into some conference, we always try to lead this off with some conference news. Thankfully, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of big news out there from the Big 12.
GT: No, I think we settled in, obviously. It was a crazy summer again, with the addition first with Colorado and then with as they call it, the four corners schools Arizona, Arizona State and Utah. We had our first meeting with all those athletic directors of a couple of weeks ago in Dallas. And now we're just starting to work through the process, you know, future scheduling, and what's it going to look like? Are we how many basketball games are we going to play? The commissioner came out and talked about 20 basketball games, we're working through on the football scheduling. So it's really just about trying to figure out. And it's coming quick, you know, we had a little more time to plan with Cincinnati and those guys. We're gonna have to have this ready here pretty soon to get all that stuff out. But it's been good. And I think right now we're kind of in a calm place.
BS: Now we'll see. We always say that and then two months later. We're gonna get to some more scheduling questions here coming up. Let's jump right into our fan questions. The first one comes from @Joe_Bagley90. We would say this is from Twitter, but it's now called X. So we'll just go from X. Joe jumps in and says: "Status of the Nike deal?". Boy, this has been a hot topic this summer.
GT: Do you have any drums we could do? We could do a drum roll.
BS: Do you have anything to tell us?
GT: We do. We have decided to extend our relationship with Nike. We went through a great process. And will the details of that contract will be coming out over the next few weeks. But we are going to extend our relationship with Nike at this time.
BS: And I know that'll be met with cheers by most or maybe some groans. But that is where we're at. Nike has been a good partner for us over time.
GT: Absolutely, been with Nike a long time. And so it was a good process and I'm glad we went through the process. But obviously we want to continue our relationship with Nike.
BS: Alright, so Nike, obviously making uniforms. That's always usually a question we get. We did not get this time about uniform changes at all. But we did get to see some new uniforms for the K-State volleyball team and their latest match against Nebraska which was yet another electric environment over at Morgan Family Arena. 'Lit' as the kids say. From X the next question: "The Morg is such a neat place..." I don't know if that's where we're gonna run with.
GT: We're gonna stay away from that. We love the Morgan family. They did a great job in supporting them. But I think we don't want to shorten that.
BS: Yeah, that's right. "Any other plans for other events in the new volleyball arena?" This is from @hatingfrancisco hating Francisco.
GT: Right now, obviously, it's a new facility and we just want to try to live in it for a while before we do a lot of changes. We want to focus on volleyball in particular, let them figure out what their schedules are going to be like. But it's it's a great setting, you know. Could it be used for other other events and other opportunities? It probably could. But we got to just let volleyball get in there and live in there. Really understand from an operational perspective and our staff to really get used to the facility. So probably for the next year or so it's going to be primarily volleyball, and then we'll go from there.
BS: Also speaking of volleyball, from X, this comes from @CathyBuchanan: "Why are the season volleyball tickets general admission seating?". Of course, this was paramount this last match with Nebraska and a lot of red in the building.
GT: Cathy, it's a great question. And we had a lot of conversation about that before we went into the building. We just felt that we really wanted to, we knew there was going to be a lot of excitement for the building and a lot of fan interest. And sometimes when you sell reserved season tickets, your best seats don't go used. And when you do that, you've got your best seats in mid-court a lot of times sit empty, as they did an Ahearn even back in the day when we were there. So we felt in order to generate the energy in there. We wanted to go with general mission. Let's see how the season goes, again, try to live in it for a year and then we'll re-evaluate after this season. I know there was some a little pain about you know, standing in line and getting people in. I think that energy in there the last of first two volleyball games has been phenomenal. And we'll continue to evaluate it but I think for this year we'll stay with general mission clearly and then we'll see what goes in the future.
BS: Now the home schedule, by the way, for volleyball this year is absolutely loaded with teams in the Big 12 that are ranked or receiving votes, including BYU who right now leads the highest ranked team. It's in the top five and it'll be in Manhattan here coming up in a bit. So should be fun year. Got to check it out if you haven't already. Of course, volleyball was in Bramlage last year. One of our questions about facilities is about Bramlage. This comes from @AllThingsKstate from X yet again: "Is the plan to keep Bramlage the way it is, renovate it, or build a new arena at some point down the road in the foreseeable future?".
GT: I don't see a new arena anytime soon. I think Bramlage is a great facility. We have touched some some things, we've added some premium seating on the court side. We added when we did this shamrock zone, we added a club area up there, we've added some additional loge boxes. But right now we'll just kind of you know, like I said earlier with some of our fundraising, we'll give our donors a little bit of a break. But I'm sure we could go in there and find some opportunities to make Bramlage, you know, a little bit more user-friendly facility. But for now, we're gonna keep it the way it is. But I really don't see any time any in the near future, a new facility at all.
BS: Yeah, it seems like the footprint is a good fit for where it is.
GT: It's a perfect fit.
BS: All right, let's go to Facebook. Course, we've had tremendous support when it comes to facilities. We finished off the Building Champions campaign with Morgan Family Arena and the Morris Family Olympic Training Center and now kind of moving into a different phase of fundraising. And this question somewhat ties into that. This comes from Geoffry Hargis from Facebook where he asks: "Coaches have gotten pay raises. What about support staff such as athletic trainers, equipment managers, video staff, they all work just as hard and should be compensated as such." And I assume this to mean support staff for teams, you know. It's not just the head coach, it's the rest of the team?
GT: Yeah Geoffry, that's a great question. And I agree with it 100 percent. Our staff works extremely hard. And we do work every year. We actually have had the last three or four years an annual increase of about three percent across the board. And then we look at individuals and where are they from a market perspective? And do they need to go up at a foreign market if, as a staff, they're doing a great job. So we have given raises to a lot of our staff. And we know just like our coaches, we need to get our salaries up in all areas. And so as we continue to generate more revenue, whether it's through donations or season ticket sales, we will look to see how do we put those dollars back into our staff, because we have got great staff. We need to keep them and it's competitive just as it is for coaches. People come after our staff because they're talented. We need to do everything we can to keep them and salaries is a big part of that.
BS: Great question there from Geoffry. We stay with Facebook for the next question. It comes from Jason Bowersox, who asks: "I love the smoke and fireworks currently," (talking about football pregame here), "but could we also do something with the steel roller door? Even painting it purple or putting a powercat on it I feel might help it be less bland looking and stick out less compared to the rest of Vanier. This one, when I first saw it, I don't know about you, but my first reaction was 'I guess I never really thought about it.'
GT: That was exactly my reaction. You know, I look at it and there's so much going on when the team first comes out. I don't really focus on that. And most of the time, like during the day, that's rolled up because teams need to get in and out of there. But that's a great question. And I'm sure you know, our facility staff and our creative staff can look at that. And whether we can maybe put a mural on there just be a powercat probably makes some sense. And so maybe we'll take his advice and look into that.
BS: I know we talked about last year, the side of baseball that faces the stadium or faces the Morris Family Olympic Training Center about putting something up there to help balance out that metal building.
GT: Yeah. And we haven't finalized what we're going to do there. But again, it's dark, empty, you know, and just big and gray. And so those kinds of things, again, once you build a new facility, and it gets up we go, 'Oh we probably didn't think about that'. So we need to think about that. So those kinds of things as again, now that these facilities are done and they're built, we can go back and really begin to look at where can we touch them up. Where can we make them look a little more appealing if they don't. So we'll do that.
BS: We had one other fan post this and we'll mention only because he's sitting in here too, as well. Kenny Lannou is a big proponent of putting a powercat on top of Bramlage Coliseum for people that are flying in. And it seems kind of silly at first, but then you think about it, you're like well, I mean, recruits are flying in and fans.
GT: Yea. I've never been up on the top. I don't know how easy that is. I don't know if it's completely flat or we have, you know, air conditioning and stuff. It's a very big price tag. I know that. I've seen the price tag. So well, you know, baby steps.
BS: Baby steps. Yeah, as you said, not sure if it's a flat roof up there or not, Jason Brummett's head may have just exploded through that. By the way, can you give us a status on the airport? For fans that may want to know about getting access into Manhattan, Kansas. Obviously that has been a huge selling point for recruits and fans. Daily flights on American, where are we at?
GT: Well, from what our understanding is, and a couple of our staff members went out and visited with the folks out of the airport. You know, they're hopeful that they're going to get it done very, very soon. Obviously, we've got some teams that need to fly in here. Troy is not going to be able to come in this weekend. We obviously leave for Missouri next weekend. We're hopeful that by the end of, in the next couple of weeks that the airport will be maybe not open for commercial flights. But that the runway has been certified by the FAA and that we could maybe land and take our charter flights in and out of there. But we'll see. I mean, it's it's a process. It was much needed. You know, if it's another couple of weeks, we'll still be okay. But I think the commercial flights take a longer period of time for them to get runing. And so I don't know what date that will be open.
BS: Hopefully it gets up soon. I know that's been a topic or a point of focus for our fans and coaches, I'm sure as well.
GT: Absolutely.
BS: Back to Twitter, or X as it's now called, from @GTCat_EMAWdio: "Could we back fill the next two years of home and home series with Arizona" (talking football scheduling now) "in the non-conference with Wazzu or Oregon State to help those teams that are without a conference?".
GT: Well, it's another great question. And for the Arizona series, which is in 2024 and 2025, we're going to keep that as a non-conference opponent. So we're going to keep that one on our schedule. With Colorado and there are some other schools that have that issue that play right away in 24. So we'll look at where we can find schools. And obviously, you know, there are a lot of changes between you know, Oregon and Washington going to the Big 10. And what opened up for those schools. And so there's probably made some schools out there needing games because of the changes across the country. And I think we'll be able to find you know, the replacement for Colorado now that they're going to be on a conference opponent. But we are going to keep the Arizona as a non-conference opponent for 24-25.
BS: There you go a little bit more breaking news on this episode of Ask the AD. All right, wrapping up our segment today, couple of questions left. @ScottWildcat, we always got to get him in and he always asked great questions. This one: "We've talked future schedules for both football and basketball a lot. But when will we see the full schedule (with dates/times) for men's basketball and women's basketball?".
GT: Well, Scott, it's coming soon. We actually did talk about that on a recent Big 12 call. They are wrapping up some things you know. Their schedules have to go to our TV partners and TV partners have to figure out, you know, who's gonna get what game. They have done that. So now it's back in the conference office. So we anticipate the men's basketball schedule coming out in the next, you know, week or so. And then the women's probably a couple weeks later. So it won't be long before we get the full schedule coming up very, very soon.
BS: Yeah, should be fun. A great year with Coach Tang last season. Looking forward to this year and more of the same in Bramlage Coliseum. Should be a lot of fun. Make sure you get those tickets as they're going fast. Last question from Twitter/X: "Does Gene like to go fishing? If so is he a local lake guy or does he charter a trip and catch fat Marlins?". This is from @GrifftheDJ.
GT: Well, I'm not a big fish guy. I mean, I fished before. When I was in Maryland, obviously, it was pretty easy to get out and fish out there. And I've just never really got into fishing. My dad never was one of those guys. He was a indoor sports kind of guy. So that's where I was. But I guess if I were, I'd go get a fat Marlin and have somebody you know, bait my hook and put it in the water and just tell me when I needed to reel it in.
BS: There you go. Great question and was a little outside the box, Griff the DJ. And soon we'll be all wishing we were out on boats, chartering in the keys. And hey, it's part of the conference now. We're gonna be down in Florida.
GT: Exactly.
BS: Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it. Lots of good questions. Hopefully there's nothing breaking in the sense of the conference in the next few months. We got to do another one but looking forward to the next month and come back with more of these. And I assume in the meantime, you're always welcome to answer what you can.
GT: Absolutely. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate and thanks to the fans. Great questions this week, absolutely.
BS: All right. Big thanks again to Preston Koerner for helping putting this together. For Gene Taylor, for all of you out there, thanks for watching. I'm Brian Smoller. We'll catch you next time on Ask the AD.