(upbeat music) - I kinda think a Shelley is like the Justice League. Everyone talks about, you know, Brinley Cannon, but they're kinda like the Justice League. They just have a nice set of characters that back them up. - When it comes to high school sports, East Idaho never gets its due. - I ran into Jeremy Hess, the AD of Grace Luther, and you know, he was just excited, and then, you know, I'm just talking to him, and they go, "We have seven girls, so just amazing." - But the East Idaho PrepCast has changed that, covering the biggest sports stories from salmon, all the way down to Bear Lake. - And again, you know, Grace is always that team just kinda lurking like, "Yeah, there's Grace." They, you know, they don't have social media, but, you know what, they have footballs, they got grass, they got pads, and they use all those very well. It's the East Idaho PrepCast with Sean Kane on IdahoSports.com. - That is right, welcome in. It is season four of the East Idaho PrepCast on IdahoSports.com. Your weekly stop-down of the biggest stories happening in the high school sports scene in districts five and six over in East Idaho. My name is Brandon Bailey. Let's bring in that poet that you heard from in our new intro we recorded for season four. It's Sean Kane, our East Idaho resident and expert. Sean, what's up? - Well, hello, Brandon. Nice to see you here in the summertime, even. But yeah, things are good. Gearing down for some East Idaho sports coming here in the fall, and boy, there's a ton going on, but yeah, excited. - Definitely, so season four that we've been doing this on IdahoSports.com. And the four years has gone, I mean, the three years has gone by just as quickly as the summer did, I feel like Sean. - Yeah, I think, I always think like, oh, we're talking about this, you know, where it's basketball and then the year's over and it's another school year starting up and it's already, you know, football talking happening. And it's crazy to believe that it's been this long and that East Idaho just has so many great stories coming out and things like that. And just, you find something new every time. It's like, you ever watch Gold Rush, that old show where they go, or not old. It's still like a show, but they go and look for gold. And you know, and they just, nothing ever works. You know, like sometimes it doesn't always work, but we're always finding gold at the end of the season. - Yeah, we're kind of like the Wright brothers when they were first flying the plane, right? We weren't sure it was ever gonna take off and land successfully, but now we've done it several times and we're getting ready for season four. We'll tell you all about, you know, you may be new to the East Idaho PrepCast here on IdahoSports.com. You can consume this weekly podcast a lot of different ways. You can watch it, of course. A lot of you are probably watching it right now on the IdahoSports.com YouTube channel, Facebook page, or Twitter account. If you want to know when we're recording a PrepCast, you can like and subscribe any of those three areas, or all three, if you're feeling really good, you can always watch it there. You can also listen to the East Idaho PrepCast at IdahoSports.com across the top of the homepage. There's all sorts of tabs. You know, we've got scores and we've got schedules and we've got prep casts. And if you click on prep casts, there's a little dropdown menu. You click on the East Idaho PrepCast. It takes you to a webpage with a little player. You can listen to it there. You can also listen to the East Idaho PrepCast, wherever you download and subscribe to podcasts. Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, et cetera. And we're here to talk the biggest stories in East Idaho Athletics Week out. But Sean, as we start season four, I've discovered I've used up all of my eligibility. I don't get an extra COVID year, like so many NCAA athletes do. So with my eligibility being exhausted, time for some real serious talk. And that is that the show is going to be captained and piloted by a different voice. Now, Sean, you're still gonna be here. Shipper is ever, I know. But let's introduce the person that's gonna be taking over my spot on the show, another East Idaho resident and an expert, great broadcaster for us at IdahoSports.com. Let's bring him in, Joel Richardson, Joel, hello. - Hey, good evening, guys. Really, really a pleasure to be here with you. Sean, the poet, I don't know if I can, what's the word, if I can answer what Sean served as the tennis coach. So I'm just gonna try to do my best to return anything he serves, anything he hits. But really it's a pleasure to be here. Brandon, we're gonna miss you big time as you try to keep all the balls in the air. But we'll do our best here as the East Idaho team, East Idaho experts, but seriously a pleasure to join this prep cast. - Yeah, Sean, maybe we can start calling you Shakespeare. Sean, what do you think? - Hey, I mean, you moved away from me. Now you're leaving the podcast. I mean, I get it, I get it. I mean, it's all right, I get it. - It is, it's a you thing. I just can't, I can't hear, no, I'm just kidding. - The slow separation. - Yeah, so for like five years, I lived in Pocatello and Sean and Joel, of course, both live in Pocatello also. Sean and I actually lived like not that far from each other, like a couple of minutes, which was funny. I didn't discover that until like two years into the prep cast, but I did move. I moved up to North Idaho. And so I'm not as plugged in with my, you know, feet on the ground as I used to be over there in East Idaho. And additionally, I mean, there's just a lot on my plate and I'm a big guy already. I don't need any more on my plate. I need to take things off of my plate. And so it worked out perfectly where Joel has really come into his own. Joel, this is gonna be your second or third year broadcasting with that. - Yeah, so this is my third season. So if completed second at basketball, this is my third season. - Yeah, that's incredible. And so it just, it made sense to hand the keys to the engine over to Joel and Sean. You guys broadcast together a lot over in East Idaho. You are a fantastic team. And you're gonna continue that here on the East Idaho prep cast. I'm not going anywhere at IdahoSports.com. I'm still here. You're just, I just, I'm not gonna be on the East Idaho prep cast. I might come back every once in a while. You know, Christmas, cameo, special or so. I don't know. - Thanksgiving. - Yeah, all the holidays, right? But I think it's gonna be a great time. So this, you know, we always use the first episode of a new season to kind of introduce everybody to ourselves. I'll get mine out of the way super quick 'cause I'm not, nobody's gonna care 'cause I'm not gonna be here much longer. But my name's Brandon Baney. Hello, I lived in Pocatello for five years. I now live in North Idaho. Prior to that, I lived in Wyoming and Nebraska and Montana, which is where I was born and raised. Let's see, sports, I played football, I did track, I played basketball in high school. I wasn't very good at any of them necessarily. So if you're not good, what do you do? You critique other people, that's usually how that goes. And that's pretty much it for me. I worked in radio before I came on at IdahoSports.com. So I have a radio background and that's where I really learned the trade as it were. So that's me, Joel, why don't you take the opportunity to introduce our audience to yourself? If you're like me, you are a transplant to the state of Idaho, right? - Yeah, transplant. So my wife and I have moved around quite a bit just for work. But yeah, most recently here in Pocatello, my wife's from Idaho Falls. She went to the famed Skyline, Skyline High School. So she was a great athlete there. State hurdler, state champion hurdler, cross country runner, she played basketball for Skyline. So anyway, I've always had a soft spot in my heart for East Idaho Sports, well for Skyline Sports. And then we moved here to Pocatello and just kind of fallen in love with the area, especially with the East Idaho High School Athletics. But yeah, born and raised in Fountain Valley, California for those out there who know where that is. Born and raised there. Look, I was too small to play basketball, to play football, I was a swimmer. I ran cross country and I surfed on the side and then I was a choir nerd, total choir nerd. And I'll own that 100%. But now I love that in high school. And then yeah, after California just moved around for college and overseas from Mission Stuff and college. And then yeah, most recently here in Pocatello. So been here, been here, see three and a half years. And starting my third season with, or four, three and a half years, starting the third season with, without those sports. That's me Brandon, great to be here, man. - The first thing I learned, I learned so many new things about you Joel. The first thing I ever learned about you is that you're a BYU super fan. Because we were carpooling to a game together and we were meeting in the parking lot at the Portnef Wellness Complex actually. And I noticed you had a, was it one or two stickers? You had some BYU stickers on your whole heart. - Yeah, it's like the wide magnet. Yeah, yeah, on the back of my car. Yep. And then I think the license plate like BYU alumni. Yeah. - Yes. - So that's what I-- - Well, it really gets me. But I love my cougars. - That's right. Yeah, Joel, and you've been a welcome addition to the team here at IdahoSports.com. And you've been fantastic. We're very lucky to have you as part of the team. Sean, why don't you go ahead and introduce, or reintroduce if we have audiences coming back from previous seasons. Tell us a little bit about you. You too are a transplant, right? But-- - I am not. - Oh, you boomerang. You were in Idaho, and then you went to-- - I thought you were from Illinois. Is that just your family? - All my parents, well, let's take a little back here. Yeah, all my families from Illinois, my parents moved out here. I'm the only cane born in Idaho. I'm the only cane I've ever known. But I've been here my whole life, born and raised in Pocatello, attended Idaho State University. And so I've been in East Idaho my entire life now. I am a big Bears and Bulls fan, White Sox fan, but I've been here my whole life. I teach for school district 25. I'm a teacher at Century High School, and I've been there for 18 years. And this year I'll be starting my 21st year of coaching high school tennis. All of them except two were at Century. I assistant coached at Highland Y student taught tennis. So yeah, I've been in Idaho my whole life. I played pretty much every sport, just not very well, probably like Brandon. And soccer is probably my biggest sport I played, and always played tennis, but no one else played tennis. So I kind of didn't really play. It wasn't so much a team thing, but really fell in love with the coaching aspect of it, and the team part of it. And so I've been coaching for 21 years now, starting that 21st season. And yeah, I've been doing I know sports for a while, you know, that's always the best story of Idaho sports, I think is the first time I was gonna help our Ferris leader Paul Kingsbury do play-by-play at Century. Brandon was there too. And then like the whole network went down. I think Brandon's run the camera, I ran the camera, I did some play-by-play, and that was our very first introduction to the whole Idaho sports gig. And I've been there every since, maybe just 'cause there was no one else, but it's been fun regardless. - Yeah, I remember that, Sean. Your first night was my first night. We technically, I guess technically you started half an hour earlier than I did, 'cause you got to the stadium a little earlier than I did that night. I remember it so vividly. Century was playing Bonneville in football. There was some serious tech issues going on. So Paul had to kind of leave the broadcast and get on the phone with our streaming company and kind of figure out what was going on. And yeah, we got thrown into the fire, Sean. You were on color, I was on camera. I made some really cringy, like Captain Planet references. - Oh yeah, for the Bonneville running backs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I remember that. Oh, I forgot about that. - Oh yeah, it was not great. Like they took the tape of that and burned it. Like that was, the game itself was not terrible. It was just our commentary was not great. But yeah, and then you and I have kind of just been parallel ever since working here at idolsforce.com. So Sean is of course a very acclaimed tennis coach at Century High School as well, coaches, boys and girls. One, a state championship this past spring, number nine. - Yep, number nine. So yeah, I've been, I mean, you know, everyone says good job to me. But be honest, the kids just make me look good. They go out and do all the work. And I've just been lucky to have amazing players and families and things like that. And some of the kids are playing in a tournament right now in Idaho Falls and Texan to me. And I mean, that's really, I think what comes down here in East Idaho is we just have such a great community when it comes to high school athletics and whether it's tennis, football, golf, the community is just great. And that's what I've loved. Maybe the most of it. While everyone kind of likes, you know, the tennis guy, oh, he knows football and just getting to meet all the different people. But at the end of the day, being a good coach and being a good community is just phenomenal. - Yeah, Joel. And I think that's what makes the balance so great here. We try to do, we try to do the sun, all of our prep casts. By the way, we have four that we do for each region of the state, North Idaho PrepCast, Treasure Valley PrepCast, Magic Valley PrepCast. And of course, the East Idaho PrepCast, which you're watching right now. We try to have one kind of broadcaster that's not in the walls, as it were, of the schools and in the athletics. And then we try to have one person that is, an athletic director, a coach, a former coach, somebody that's plugged in. And that's what makes it so great. Because, Joel, you prepare like nobody's. You've already started preparing for football season. You told me earlier this week, which is great. And then Sean has the, you know, he is a coach. He talks to other coaches. He talks to other athletic directors because you're constantly trying to schedule opponents and all of that great stuff. So Joel, I think this is gonna be a perfect match here. - Yeah, I would totally agree and really I, one of the complaints I think that people have from where I grew up in California is there's just so much going on. And so there's just so many options. But here in East Idaho, they're just, they're not those, you know, they don't have five, six professional teams to go attend every night. So where does everyone go in East Idaho? And most of Idaho too. Everyone goes to the football stadium on a Friday night, right? Everyone's at the basketball game on a Tuesday, Thursday night. And just to echo what Sean was saying, it makes it so fun to be part of Idaho high school sports athletics here in East Idaho. And then, and I just have a, I get so much joy honestly from preparing for these kids, hitting up coaches, ADs. And obviously, Sean and I work working together to find that information. It really is a blast. I really enjoy it. Sometimes more than my day job actually, which is maybe a problem, but it really is a pleasure to prepare for these kids and then bring that broadcast, even the prep cast bring our information and then to celebrate these athletes, their families and their stories. - And that's really what it's all about. Sharing these incredible stories of these young men and young women in our communities that are doing great things on the field, but also from a leadership perspective. And of course, the great coaches that are out there as well. Sean, I'm just trying to think back over the years, we've done it, some of the favorite things that I've enjoyed that we talked about, Grace Lutheran volleyball, going to state with seven girls in a sport that requires six players on the court at one time. I mean, that was incredible last year, right? - Yeah, that one was a great one. The thing that kind of comes to my mind is when, not last two years ago, is it two years ago we went to a bunch of Westside games and Westside and did a bunch of Westside games and we're right next to the band, which is Brandon's favorite place to be broadcasting. And I don't know, it's just, if you don't get to go, not everyone gets to go to all the different football locations or basketball places, but just to kind of go to all the different places is really kind of what sticks in my mind and going and seeing Westside and their dominance is kind of an exciting thing that always sticks out in my mind. Or Grace Lutheran was great last year and then just kind of Grace, the high school of Grace, just been phenomenal over the past few years at everything. I think if they had hopscotch, Grace probably would win it in their division. But yeah, just kind of all the different, we get, I'll say we, but sometimes we get wrapped up in the bigger divisions and Eastside O just has such a wide variety in those second half of those divisions as very exciting. - Yeah, and unless you think we're two district five heavy, we play it pretty evenly between district five and district six. I mean, some of the great district six stories we've covered, rugby in football and girls basketball, they've been phenomenal. You think back to like Thunderrage and what they've done in soccer, Firth and football has been really good the past couple of years. Joel, I think probably the biggest story in Idaho, well, one of definitely two or three of the biggest stories in Idaho sports last year. You were on the sidelines for at ICCU Dome, what used to be Holt Arena in Pocatello, when Butte County won their first football championship in school history and not only that, but Dylan Waymire, who was, we weren't sure he was going to live after suffering injuries from a car accident and then collapsed on the sidelines during a game in the middle of the season had been in the hospital for months and months and months trying to get better, made it to Pocatello for that last game was on the sidelines in a wheelchair. When they won the championship trophy, he got to stand up with his teammates. I mean, it was just an incredible, powerful moment. And you were right there. - Yeah, Logan Green, our Treasure Valley guy, he was on the playoff play, I was on color and he and I both got emotional. Like we totally did as Dilly Strong, right? Dylan Waymire got up from the wheelchair, hoisted the trophy and it was a powerful moment. It was such a cool experience to watch Butte County Pirates and it was a great game. The Hornets Butte County, right? Oakley Hornets, right? Butte County Pirates and but in the end, Butte County got it and it was just, it was, well, honestly, it was like one of those like, Oh, NFL, you know, the NFL script writers, you know what I mean? That was like the East side of script writers where we're doing their thing in the background. Sean, Shakespeare, Sean was riding the play for Butte County Pirates to win the championship. Oh, it was, it was an incredible moment. - Yeah. And so along those lines, as we're going throughout the season, if there is a story, if there is a team, if there is a player, if there's a coach, something incredible that's happening that you feel like just isn't getting enough attention, you can always, we are always open for story ideas. You can contact us a number of different ways. You can always send me an email, Brandon@idahostports.com and I'll make sure it gets to these guys. Joel, I see you've got your Twitter handle on the screen there at E1 Educator. Sean usually has his Twitter handle up. You're in summer of A.K. mode still, Sean. - Well, it just used to automatically be there every time I logged onto this thing. So I don't know, it's probably on your end. - So you're at, you're at S. Kane 182, right? - Yeah, Sean, yeah, at Sean Kane 182. Just like that with a 182 on it. - Yep, and that's because you're a Blink 182 Uber fan. That's the reference there. So anyways, a lot of different ways you can get in contact with us. We're always on the lookout for great stories and that's what we're here for, to shine the light on these incredible young men and women in our communities that are doing so many incredible things. All right guys, well, next time we hop on for the East Idaho PrepCast, it's gonna be Joel and Sean, I'm excited. I'm excited to see where you guys take the show and the great work that you guys are gonna do and Joel, you know, football season is not that far away. So, you know, you've got lots of good topics to talk about. - Yeah, I'm chomping at the bit like you teased earlier. I'm already getting ready for Grace Oakley, right? In just a few weeks, I cannot wait. I wanted to hit up the coaches, but I'm gonna wait, give them a couple more weeks to have their fall camp. But I don't really excited. We're gonna have a lot of good stories. Sean is so connected with his years of coaching experience. So we're gonna bring a couple really nice stories every week, maybe bring an athlete of the week, a performance of the week. So yeah, hit us up. If you guys out there have a performance that maybe you think we may miss, kind of nominate your athlete or the performance. And we'll wait against the others that we're looking at and it should be a really, really good season of football and all the other sports are gonna happen. Obviously, it isn't just football, but there's all the fall sports. We'd love to celebrate the great moments. But yeah, a lot of good stories, really excited to get started. - Yep. Sean. - Yeah, I was just gonna say soccer is just around the door too. Talking to some of the soccer coaches, it should be a very exciting year. East Idaho-wise soccer, I think it might just be a year to kind of watch out Boise Valley. Some East Idaho soccer might make some noise this year. And that's just right around the corner, volleyball, cross country, golf. We gotta remember golf. That'll be Joel's job since he's a host. Remember golf is going on now 'cause they changed it, right? So we gotta remember golf in the upper divisions is going on. So we never wanna miss that on the athletes. - Yeah, that's actually the first sport that gets started is golf. So lest we forget. So yes, we would love to talk more golf. Golf coaches send us your results. - Send the picture. - Yeah, send the picture of the scorecard up on the wall. 'Cause we know. - No window. - You know, after about 30 seconds after the tournament is over, that thing gets ripped down and thrown in the garbage. And then it's lost forever. So yeah, it's gonna be so much fun. I can't wait. In the meantime, at IdahoSports.com, of course, we are in the pick of season previews. We write a detailed preview for every football team in the state of Idaho. That's right. From 6A all the way down to 1A, we've got you covered more and more previews being added every day. If you haven't seen your favorite team yet, keep checking back. We're getting more and more put in. We have almost all of the schedules put in for volleyball and soccer and football as well. And of course, throughout the summer, we've been doing our top 10 lists position by position, kind of giving you the top 10 players. You should keep an eye on this year in the football field, position by position, and spoiler alert, a lot of East Idaho guys so far. So you can check all of that out at our website, IdahoSports.com. But here we are, season four, off and running. Here on the East Idaho PrepCast. Thanks for tuning in, everybody. We'll see you back here next week for Sean Kane and for Joel Richardson. One last time, I'm Brandon Manie, and we'll see you next time on the East Idaho PrepCast on IdahoSports.com.
