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Summary
In this inaugural episode of Giant Conversations, hosts Hari Nam Singh Khalsa and Kevin Weldon share their personal stories and emotional connections to the New York Giants. They discuss how their love for the team has shaped their lives, the importance of coaching, and the hope brought by the new coach Jim Harbaugh. The podcast aims to create a community of passionate Giants fans while exploring both current events and the rich history of the team.
Takeaways
Both hosts share deep emotional connections to the New York Giants.
The Giants have been a constant in the hosts' lives, providing a sense of community.
The importance of coaching in football is emphasized throughout the conversation.
The hosts aim to provide a unique perspective on Giants football, focusing on history and personal experiences.
The emotional impact of sports on relationships is a recurring theme.
The podcast will explore both current events and historical context of the Giants.
The hosts have diverse backgrounds that enrich their discussions.
The new coach brings hope and a sense of trust back to the fanbase.
The podcast aims to create a community of passionate Giants fans.
Sound Bites
"This is not just a jock show."
"I feel like I can breathe again."
"The new coach inspires confidence."
Giant Conversations YouTube Channel:
- (00:00) - Introduction to Giant Conversations
- (05:33) - Personal Connections to the Giants
- (10:39) - Emotional Bonds and Memories
- (21:13) - Friendship Through Football
- (34:12) - The Purpose of Our Podcast
- (41:38) - Exploring Personal Connections and Football Memories
- (50:16) - A New Era for the Giants: Coaching Changes
- (56:30) - Trusting the Process: A Shift in Giants' Management
- (01:01:59) - The Importance of Coaching in Football Success
- (01:09:59) - Looking Ahead: Optimism for the Giants' Future
- (01:15:51) - Setting Up
Creators and Guests
Host
Hari Nam Singh Khalsa
Hari Nam is a renown spiritual teacher, whose passions include opera, philosophy, photography and travel (to name a few). But on Sundays in the fall you can find him living and dying with his beloved New York Football Giants, following since 1959 and a season ticket holder since 1964!
Host
Kevin Weldon
Kevin is a lifetime Giant fan and long time season ticket holder. Currently a PGA golf professional after many years as a semiconductor technologist. He enjoys history, traveling, music and spending time with friends, family and the cats.
What is Giant Conversations?
Hosts Hari Nam Singh Khalsa and Kevin Weldon provide their insights on the latest happenings in the world of the New York Football Giants. Drawing from twelve decades of Giants football fandom, their perspectives offer a unique and comprehensive view. They will also integrate their shared passion for world travel and curiosity for unique new experiences into each episode. Join them in their lighthearted and wide-ranging conversations, always infused with their unwavering love for everything Big Blue.
All right, we're on, I can't believe it.
uh Finally, the first episode of Giant Conversations.
I'm tickled this is gonna happen.
uh I'm Hari Nam Singh Khalsa and I have with me my good buddy, Kevin Weldon.
He's a lot funnier than I am.
I'm a lot more boring than he is.
So why don't I just let him...
uh
him get things rolling and say whatever he needs to say.
And we'll take off on our maiden voyage of uh giant conversations.
Yeah.
So thank you for the opportunity, Hari Nam.
Hari Nam's kind of world famous in uh certain parts, South America, ah South Asia.
ah I'm only famous on Long Island and Turkey for the most part.
ah But this show's called The Giant Conversations.
And uh of course, uh it stems out of our mutual love of the New York Giants, and that's
what brought us together uh initially, and we'll talk more about that.
uh But uh beyond that, uh we have very diverse backgrounds, interests, things that uh we
both find uh interesting and important to us.
You know, this isn't just a jock show, okay?
We're going to be talking Yumi condition, we're going to be talking uh other items, but it
is the love of the giants that brought us brought us together.
And just to give you a little bit of the background, you know, I, I grew up on Long
Island.
And, uh you know, uh the giants were a big part of, you know, my nascent period as a uh
as a youth.
you know, I can remember uh when I was a little kid, you know, maybe five years old, every
Sunday, you know, I'd be watching the giant games with my father.
And back in those days, back in those days, the home games weren't shown on on the local
network.
So I'm like, like, I guess 67.
Really?
Okay.
shortly after, know, 67, 60, shortly after I stopped pooping my pants, you know, I mean, I
was I was just a little kid for the most part.
And I remember my father had to go up on the roof and our house in Long Island and switch
the antenna.
And I would stand down below.
And the reason he did it, he was trying to he was trying to pick up a signal from the
Connecticut affiliate and.
I'd be watching the TV and he'd be turning and then it'd be a ghost image and then it
could be something recognizable and I would yell, dad, dad, we got it.
And he'd come downstairs and we'd watch the games together.
think part of my relationship with my father throughout our time together.
And that was the beginning of my love for the Giants.
I also like uh other sports, I don't follow.
I consume the Giants.
I follow other sports uh more casually.
the uh Giants are constitute the overwhelming majority of my sports attention.
And just to give you one other quick example, I remember in 1969,
when the Mets were in the World Series.
And uh it was a Sunday.
I think it was the first game of the World Series in 1969.
So was like in second grade or something.
And the Giant game was on the same time as the Mets game in the World Series.
And we only had one TV.
And my parents and my other siblings wanted to watch the Met game.
And I was desperately wanting to watch the Giant game.
I mean, I liked the Mets, but it was the Giants.
And I was outvoted and I took off crying.
Literally, I was crying because I wanted to watch the game.
so that's kind of the basic short summary of how I got involved with the Giants.
And I'll let Harinam talk for a minute about the...
We'll talk about how we got involved with each other as we move on.
Well, unlike Kevin, I didn't have any nascent moments when I was younger.
When I was younger.
He has a bigger vocabulary.
I have a big vocabulary, but he has a slightly bigger vocabulary than me.
don't recall using nascent before.
maybe it's because it didn't exist in my childhood.
There was no nascency, as you said.
So.
Yeah, a little bit about my background with the Giants because that's what we're going to,
I mean, that's the foundation of what we're going to be doing on this stuff.
But in the end, the foundation of this is the New York football Giants.
And I have to admit, just starting talking about it, actually, I'm uh getting a little
emotional talking about this because a lot of stuff's happened recently even with the
Giants and
And even some of the stuff Kevin was saying about his relationship with his dad, it's kind
of really, I mean, without getting into my personal psychology and my personal background
and my family relations, I'm sure that others can relate to this, is that I had kind of an
on and off, hot and cold relationship with my dad without getting into a lot of it.
And back in that generation, fathers sometimes weren't as present as they are now.
And so when I think back of it, the only really unconditional thing me and my father had
from childhood all the way to the day he died were the New York football giants.
There was no, we had conflicts about all kinds of other things, but we had no conflict
when it came to
Sundays in the fall that it was always about the Giants.
you know, Kevin's actually heard this story, because we'll tell you later, I mean, we have
season tickets together now, but actually those season tickets were actually started in
1964, because I actually started following, my first giant game was actually the 1959
championship game between the Giants and the Colts.
on television.
And that's actually the day I became a giant fan, because I saw that game.
And even though I didn't know anything about football, and I didn't even know what the
team was, I was heartbroken that they lost, but I didn't understand why I was heartbroken.
from 19, and then 1960, I started reading about the games in the New York Times, because
the home games weren't on television.
And starting in 1961, when I was nine years old,
I actually, I have not missed a giant game that I had access to since 1961.
And so I've either been in person, seen on TV or listened on the radio, even on a ham
radio, no matter where I was in the world.
I haven't missed a giant game since 1961.
I'm sure I don't have a lot of company of people still on the planet.
In 1964, actually, was, in 63, 64, I was like 11, 12 years old, and I had a serious
medical condition.
My feet, I was like pigeon-toed.
I almost could trip over my own feet.
My body was genetically out of line, and my parents wanted to do something about it, and
they...
And my father knew how much I loved the Giants, but the doctors said that they were gonna
have to break my legs and reset my legs, and there would be a long recovery and they
couldn't guarantee anything.
And my dad knew that the only thing in life that I really loved so much that I'd do
anything for were the New York Giants.
So my father actually made a proposition to me that if I could straighten my own feet out.
in six months he would get giant season tickets and they couldn't believe it but I
actually willed my legs to walk straight without braces just in the hope that I'd have
giant season tickets.
So, it's emotional even talking about these things and then basically that's, I mean a lot
of things have come and gone in my life.
I've had a very interesting life and we'll talk about all those.
things in the episodes too about life in general, but the one constant in my life has
always been the New York Giants.
And a lot of memories along the way, a lot of funny stories along the way.
uh you know, Kevin will get into how we met, which was around the Giants, but uh even this
last season, we're talking actually now a couple days after uh John Horbar was.
uh
hard ride the Giants.
And Kevin knows me and I'm sure a lot of you who are Giants fans would feel the same way.
ah This has probably been the worst year for me of ever following the Giants since 1959.
In that, I just got so frustrated that um it just affected my day and it got to the point,
and Kevin's talked about this, and I'm sure some of you would agree that
This year I found myself watching the games and not even caring, which is worse than
actually being pissed off.
I was worse than pissed off, I didn't care.
then I heard that they hired this coach.
I don't know what's gonna happen with this coach, just the hope of having Sundays being
important again to me, I found myself...
uh
actually feeling hope for the first time in a long time.
And I actually really liked that feeling.
And I was even wearing my giant jerseys this week and all that.
But it was emotional.
And then last night on YouTube, I have to trip over a documentary called The Duke.
It was about Wellington Mara.
fact, me and Kevin, we were just talking about that yesterday.
We actually spoke with, we got to meet,
Wellington Marra many years ago.
And I was at Wellington Marra's funeral in 2005 and I actually saw the game a couple of
days uh before then when Tiki Barber actually had one of the great, and the Giants beat
the Redskins I think 34 to nothing or 36 to nothing.
It was one of the best games the Giants have ever played in my lifetime and they beat a
good Redskin team and I've never experienced anything quite like that either.
And I watched this documentary and it, I don't want to cry on my own podcast, but it was
very emotional and it made me proud to follow this team and made me, and I realized how
many friendships, including people like Kevin, that I've gained through this.
yeah, that's a little of my...
giant background so people know where to find me on Sundays in the fall.
uh
Yeah, I mean, there's no shame in it being emotional.
know, the male of the species isn't always emotionally available.
So any way you could connect to your father, it's easy to connect to your mother, right?
I mean, it just is.
mean, thank God there's women in the world.
But it's much harder to connect with your father.
And that was our connection.
And like you said, we had our differences.
ah
you know, up, but then there was always the giants.
And there weren't significant differences.
mean, I, you know, I had, you know, just a fantastic childhood where I grew up and, you
know, very privileged and that guy wasn't from wealth, but very privileged in terms of the
support I had and so on and so forth.
But after I stopped the poop in my pants and crying, uh
I went to junior high school and high school and I actually played football in junior high
school and high school.
Although I'm six foot six.
It doesn't look like it because I'm sitting down.
uh in high school I was like six foot six and 145 pounds.
I looked like olive oil and wasn't exactly popular with the ladies.
So uh that's probably where some of my sense of humor was developed.
because everybody was going to the prom and whatever.
I was taking protein drinks that my mother bought me so I could put on weight to look like
a human.
But anyway, I love the game.
I love playing.
I wasn't great at it, partially because of my physical condition.
But I really love the game.
File the Giants.
Then I went to college and I was in college for five years and somehow I got a degree in
physics.
But during my college years, I didn't watch football at all.
I mean, I don't know what I was doing during my college years.
I don't even remember my college years.
I know I got out and I had a degree.
That's whatever, but I mean, it was a lot of fun.
I can tell you that.
But we didn't have a TV, it was a different.
part of your life, know?
mean, it's a, you know, I know the college experience beyond, you know, getting some
credential was invaluable to me.
I just met people with different opinions, completely different opinions that I've ever
had in my life.
And it just kind of broadens you in terms of, oh of,
you know, what's going on in the world, the way people think, but that's not either here
nor there, you know.
And uh I got a job with Intel, the uh semiconductor company, and I moved to Portland,
Oregon, because that's where Intel was, and my brother was out there at the time.
uh And, you know, once I was out of college, I became interested in football again.
The only problem was,
I lived in Portland, Oregon.
So all I ever saw were the Seahawks and the 49ers for the most part.
And to this day, I wouldn't say I can't stand those teams.
That's not fair.
But I resented them at the time.
So, you know, my mother and my friends and my father used to, you know, tape games, DHS
tapes and send them to me in the mail.
And I would hope to watch them before the following Sunday.
And I would call my friends and get live updates.
And this went on for five or six years.
And then I heard, or somebody told me that at Champion Sports Bar in the Marriott in
downtown Portland, they had two satellite dishes.
And they had showed two out of market games every Sunday.
I'm like, wow, that's interesting.
So I called them one Sunday.
said, and Giants are playing the Cowboys.
And I said, do you happen to have the Giant Cowboy game on?
They said, yeah, we got that game on.
I said, holy macaroni.
I got in my car, rushed down in a Marriott, walked in, and I saw two things.
Two things that were very important to me.
The first was I saw the Giants playing the Cowboys live, which I hadn't seen in six years,
other than when I went back to New York and went to the games and so on.
And the other thing I saw was an odd looking cat with a turban and a beard, the man you
see next to you.
And he was wearing a giant shirt and I just sat down and I was naive at the time.
I really haven't traveled, it wasn't particularly well read.
So I was taken aback by Hamri Nam's appearance, but that lasted about one quarter, because
as we started to get more and more into the game, his appearance uh became largely
irrelevant.
uh And that was the uh seed that started a friendship.
And it was like, that was probably 1980s.
eight, I would guess.
And, you know, we've been pretty tight friends since then.
So there you have the Giants, you know, not only a big part of, uh you know, my life with
my father and, and among the other friends, but also with uh Harry Numb, uh meeting him
and, uh you know, again, part of my learning process that started in college where you
You learn about alternative ideas, ways of life, different places in the world you
wouldn't have considered, different philosophical points of view that were all of
tremendous interest to me.
While I was in college, I wasn't particularly interested in accruing knowledge.
But somehow, again, I got out of college.
ah But since then, I'm not obsessed by it, but it's a big part of my life, continuing to
learn, continuing to have new experiences, which we'll get into as part of the broadcast.
I'll just say one other thing and then turn it back over to Hari Nam is that when the
games are on TV, he would invite me over to his house and we'd watch the games.
I remember watching the 1990 NFC championship game against San Francisco, which was my
favorite sporting event of my life.
mean, that to me is the greatest giant game ever played.
And I remember when Matt Barr was going to kick that field goal, Henry and I were hiding
behind his couch.
We couldn't look.
And his wife came in and said, what are you doing?
I'm saying, I lost the contact.
em
I thought she said, what inning is it in?
Anyway, ah so that brings us up to the point where uh how we met and how we started to
develop our friendship.
And one thing you said is interesting is that you always kind of bring it back to the
years you were in college.
And it's kind of interesting in retrospect.
how old are you now?
I just turned 65.
I get a free bus pass.
I've been waiting for that for 65 years.
Hey, but I get into the museums at half price.
um I'm gonna be 74 in March.
He's 65.
Yeah, it's the makeup, it's the cosmetics that are preserving me.
ah But you said something interesting is that we both were, actually, ironically, we were
both raised on Long Island.
I was born in Brooklyn.
I don't know if.
You were born in Long Island, but I was born in Brooklyn, raised in Long Island.
You were raised in Long Island.
My family's from Rockaway, but I grew up alone.
You know, so much I was raised in, in one of the words actually, you know, talk about
being raised in Long Island and the giants is that one of the most humiliating times of my
life being a giant fan.
And I think it's one reason you, really hate like the Seahawks and the, and the 49ers.
And we both don't like the people in our division, the Eagles and the Cowboys, but
don't hate the Seahawks.
I resented them because they were always on TV.
The 49ers I hate because, well, because I'm immature and, you know, haven't been able to
get past our competitions with them in the 80s.
But that's, you continue please, sorry.
Yeah, but you you don't have the negativity I have towards the Jets.
Because, yeah, because I don't know that you went through what I had to go through because
I was in high school and I was a huge, you know, got season tickets.
The Giants were the most important thing in my life.
And that was when the Jets won the uh Super Bowl.
That was probably the worst day for me, seeing the Jets, when the Giants going down.
And I was in high school, and were talking, getting back to Long Island, is that everyone,
and all my friends are sports fans, but virtually all of them were Jets fans, Mets fans
and Jets fans.
I was a Yankee fan and a Giants fan.
And to have the Jets win the Super Bowl just...
made it 10 times harder of what the Giants were going through in the 60s.
so I've kind of kept that, and it's again, my own immaturity.
I'm holding onto that pain that I felt the day I had to go back to school after the Jets
won the Super Bowl.
I took it personally.
yeah, I'm 74, I still haven't got over it.
So, right?
You know what I'm talking about.
Everybody there knows who I'm talking
I actually have a ridiculous quick story.
On the day the Jets won the Super Bowl, I remember listening to the game on the radio.
I was like eight, seven or eight, or somewhere around it.
we were and first of all, we were shocked that the Jets were winning.
But the but the really odd thing about it is we were skiing on Long Island.
Back then there was a place called Bald Hill.
It had about 200 feet of vertical.
It's still there.
Actually, I went to a concert there not long ago, but we were driving home from our ski
trip on Long Island, listening to the end of that game.
And just in shock, because my parents thought Namath was such a braggart and couldn't
stand him because of that, because of his
The way he was, and as a little kid, of course you'd love that.
I mean, hey, look at this guy.
Looks like he's having fun.
Yeah, well, oddly enough, that's one thing me and your parents could have bonded on back
then.
So I didn't like them either.
anyhow, so like you, you know, it's kind of, guess the ironic point is that college had
such a, a go away college had such an effect on our respective lives is that, you know,
New York in general, maybe Long Island, obviously less is such a.
diverse cosmopolitan place, one of the most in the world.
But you can actually, I mean, me and you are probably evidence of you being born and
raised in the New York metropolitan area and still live kind of a cloistered sheltered
life.
So I didn't really know anything that's kind of outside my little world, even living in
New York.
I really wasn't exposed to a lot of different, it's hard to believe that right now, but.
You know, I was in the New York metropolitan area and I actually wasn't exposed to a lot
of different people, a of different ideas.
And I went to the University of Maryland and I'm sure my parents cursed the day they ever
decided that was a good idea because I came back a different person.
That's not what they had in mind.
And I went away to university and I was exposed to all these different kinds of people I
never had met, all these different ideas.
taking courses and all this stuff and finding myself absolutely blew my mind.
All the things that new ideas that I was exposed to and you can I mean again that's when
I'm 18 years old and now you you can see I'm I'm gonna be 74 and you see I'm sitting here
I got a beard I got a big turban on my head and this is really kind of indirectly all a
result of the new ideas that I was.
exposed to, and I got interested in Eastern philosophy.
oh And I went to law school in New York, I went to St.
John's.
uh by the time I was at a law school, was uh doing yoga and meditation, things that people
weren't doing back then.
So I felt like kind of a pioneer and thought there's probably a weirdo.
I was exploring really other ways of...
looking at the world.
And then very in my 20s, I became a Sikh.
uh if you have a question, well, you know, why is this guy wearing a turban and a beard?
But I basically took on a religion that's from India and the podcast is not about that.
But if you have a curiosity why we're both wearing turbans, I have a traditional uh Sikh
Nihang turban and Kevin's wearing a New York Giants turban right now.
So he's got to grow that beard, right?
But he's got, and mine doesn't have a little beanie on top, but his has a nice little red
beanie, but we're both in the same giant clan.
We just kind of dress differently.
But yeah, college had a big influence.
then, even though I went to law school in New York, and I think me and Kevin had different
uh experiences being in Oregon, for instance, probably mine much more positive in some
ways, but.
I went there, I think he went there basically because there was a job there waiting for
him.
I actually went to Oregon by choice in that I had visited it while I was in law school and
I thought it was the most beautiful thing I ever saw in my life.
It just blew my mind.
And I was interested in kind of getting away from New York and getting yet another
experience.
And I started...
uh
backpacking and mountain climbing and doing all the things that people do in Oregon that
they don't do in Long Island.
There's not a lot of mountain climbing in Long Island.
There's not a lot of, you know, there's not a lot of river rafting in Long Island.
There's great things in Long Island, but there's no mountains to climb.
uh And so that I did that.
I was in Oregon for 30 years and yeah, like Kevin was saying, you know, there very few
giant games on TV.
Even in the 80s, the times you saw the Giants on national TV, in the 80s, the Giants had,
it's a long time ago, had really good teams.
And they were on national television actually a lot.
So they weren't like the game locally, like Kevin was saying, you would see, and they'd
always have like Pat Sumneral and John Madden doing the games.
And they'd be like big games against the 49ers, the Bears, the Redskins, the Eagles, those
who are on national TV.
Probably the Giants were so good that probably half their games were actually on national
TV.
so, but then when they weren't on national TV, you know, I'm trying to somehow connect to
it in alternative ways.
yeah, I met Kevin in one of those.
I actually met him at a sports farm in Portland.
And as Kevin says, people right now, younger people don't know this, but that was like a
really big new thing.
I mean, that didn't really start till like the late 80s.
And then even then,
kind of a very primitive way and now it is what today you can go in any city, any sports
bar and see every game.
That's a non-issue.
But back then we didn't have that and we used to watch the games together.
I was a practicing attorney in Portland and Kevin was working for Intel.
He was an executive at Intel.
And we kind of got into each other's social circle a little bit.
And as you'll see from the podcasts that come forward, uh and it gets into kind of what
we're doing here too is that the interesting thing is we both got uh to know each other as
being rabid New York giant fans living in the outpost of Portland, Oregon.
there weren't a lot of other, I had a couple of other friends there who were that way who
I'm still in touch with, but that was very rare.
And, but then as we got to know each other better, we realized, I'm suing it for myself
here, I'm saying we, but I realized that, oh my God, that this is like one of the few guys
like me.
This guy is like interested, and this is kind of my expression, he's interested in
everything and everybody.
And that's how I would describe myself.
I'm a person who's interested in absolutely everything and absolutely everybody.
so I got a certain.
passion for living that kind of life.
because of some the lifestyle I live, including being a spiritual teacher, I've been
invited to travel just all over the world and meet all kinds of people.
And Kevin's traveled all over the world.
And Kevin also knows more about history than any person I've ever met.
So I've learned a lot about history from him.
And yeah, right.
I would agree with that.
You're not a pretty face.
But no, but he's very, you know, and I'm informed about a lot of things.
So it's like, we never are lacking something to talk about because between the two of us,
I think we've had uh wild experiences in this life.
We're both married to women who are from other countries.
We both can speak other languages.
We both have had numerous roles in our life.
You know, he's like uh a, he's been a business executive in a, basically a tech company
that was just coming up strong when he was getting out of college.
So he's, he's been part of the whole technological revolution in the United States and
he's been an executive and he, uh he's a golf pro.
Okay.
And so he's got a lot, he knows about history.
So it's like, you can talk about all kinds of things.
I've had
My own life's been very interesting.
so we, yeah, like Kevin was saying before we were starting today is we could talk for
hours.
yeah, because there's just so much to talk about.
one thing that Kevin can give his insight into this, my hope in this uh podcast is like,
so there, anybody who'd want to jump on this, that there's no misunderstanding about uh
what we're.
uh
what our intentions, our collective intentions are here.
That there's no misunderstanding that the foundation of this podcast is the New York
football giants.
And that uh there's a lot of stuff, I I do, I listen to other people's podcasts.
I listen to them, watch the YouTube, and I actually listen and watch to a lot of them
because they all have something different to offer.
And yet I think that we can offer something that the others don't.
So, you know, there's other podcasts.
I put them in different categories.
There's podcasts about the giants that are predominantly about news.
They're informing you what's going on with the team.
So they know more than we do.
OK, we only hear what they say.
So this is not like an informative news oriented podcast.
There's other podcasts that are giving you, uh they're trying to kind of get into the
weeds about, you know, the giants, you know, they're in 11 formation.
I wish they'd play more 12 formation and they're playing a deep zone.
I wish they'd bring the safeties more closely because that fits with their, okay, so I
don't think either of us think that we know enough.
We're not that smart, okay?
So we leave that to people who have,
more, either a higher opinion of themselves than we do, or that they actually have real
knowledge.
And I like going to that, but I'm not saying that I have a huge amount of knowledge, even
if I did.
This is not going to be about us trying to impress you with our football knowledge about
the inside of the game.
I don't think it will be.
There's other podcasts, and you know which ones we're talking about, because it's pretty
obvious.
There's other podcasts that I think you put more in the fandom that they are more
emotional and they're talking as fans, not as experts.
And they're they're sharing their angst and joys about the team.
OK, and I think we'll lean a little bit into that because I think that we're coming from
it from a fan's point of view, just how we're feeling and and and what we're thinking
about things.
which is similar to other podcasts.
But I think there's two things that we're hoping to bring that will be different than any
other podcast.
uh one is that Kevin is telling you that he started being coming aware and following the
Giants in the middle or late 60s.
OK, 70s.
I'm sorry.
I started following the Giants in the late 50s.
Okay, so I actually have been following the Giants since a number of their players did not
even wear face masks.
And some of the players in the league were playing two ways.
Okay, so there was another, and I've gone through all, I've been following Giants football
now.
I'm 74, so I have followed Giants football for 65 years now.
And a lot of the people who are doing the podcast, and bless them, I mean, they're doing a
great job, but the reality is old-time football to them is Eli Manning, okay?
But that was like 50 years after I started following the Giants.
I have a, and Kevin, I think you're gonna hear us talk a lot about...
the history of the Giants and it'll be interspersed.
We've seen games that were played before a lot of the, hopefully our viewers were even
born.
And so we've seen pieces of Giants football that run very deep.
So I'm hoping that we make history of the Giants part of this and to keep that alive.
And I don't think you're going to hear that in a lot of other podcasts that we'll talk a
lot about the 60s, 70s, but also what's happening today.
And the other part of the podcast, and it goes back to the title of it, is that it's
called Giant Conversations, meaning big, not only giant football, but they're big
conversations.
So I think that what we're really trying to get here is, well, the foundation is always
going to be giants football, but the hope is that we'll have the freedom to kind of bring
people into other places and physically and.
intellectually and psychologically and talk about all kinds of things about life because
we've been so involved with the Giants and the Giants has kind of been a kind of a fulcrum
for a lot of our activity that a lot of our experiences even with giant football brings us
to worldly and otherworldly places.
So I think we're hoping to kind of bring you into this just by inviting you into
We're not here to teach you or tell you anything.
We're more like inviting you into personal conversations so that you can kind of think and
live vicariously through things that we've been through.
Is that kind of fair to say?
Yeah, I think it is.
Just uh a few fact checks.
I was never an executive at Intel.
uh I was uh a low level or mid manager, uh but I would never consider myself to be an
executive.
I was never terribly interested in work, to be honest with you.
When I did work, I just took up way too much of the time.
had many other interests.
I didn't dislike it.
I got to travel, which was good.
And I always liked lunch.
I was a big lunch guy.
But it certainly doesn't define who I am other than the people I met during this course.
the other thing is it wasn't the 70s.
It was the 60s.
I started watching the Giants.
Whenever Frank Tarkington came around, he's the first guy I remember.
Okay, 67.
And I missed the first pre-season game in 69 because my friends and I rode our bikes from
Long Island to Woodstock.
So I missed that weekend.
I think I had my buddy Lofi on my handlebars as we were driving up there.
But that's the timeframe.
uh that I became.
I don't want to self-grandize myself professionally.
uh I worked at Intel for 24 years, uh got to go to a lot of different places.
I was based in Oregon.
Oregon, it can be a bit dreary.
If you're not familiar with it, it has beautiful summers, but it has dark and wet other
periods.
So any opportunity I had to get out, just to get out of the workplace, just to get out of
a cubicle or a laboratory and go somewhere, I took that.
So I probably spent a year of my life in California and a half a year in Arizona and New
Mexico.
also spent a fair amount of time in Israel.
Intel had a factory there that was fascinating.
We could talk about that at some other time.
And Ireland too, spent a lot of time in Ireland.
Have a lot of friends there.
uh Have a friend in every county basically in Ireland.
And uh just wonderful experiences.
I wanted to add one something.
I Hari Nam mentioned he went to the University of uh Maryland.
And when I was in high school,
uh When I did get into the game, which wasn't all that often, I played a tight end.
And uh we were playing against a central ice slipper, east ice slipper, one of the ice
slips.
And one of the players on the opposite team was Mike Tice.
I don't know if you remember him, but he...
Yeah.
Yeah, I don't know if our...
Whatever three viewers we might have know who he is, but...
played for Maryland too, I think.
he played for Maryland.
That's why I brought it up.
Yeah, he played for Maryland and he played professionally and he was like gigantic
compared to everybody else.
He was a quarterback, but he was, I mean, it was, it looked like, you know, Gulliver and
the Lilliputians, you know, I might've been his height, but I was a hundred pounds lighter
than him and he played safety.
And I remember being in a huddle saying, don't throw the ball to me.
Don't throw the ball to me.
I'm not getting hit by that guy.
And by the way, your girlfriend's talking to some other guy up in the stands.
know, this is the kind of things we would say.
And then the next year, which I didn't play, but you know, I think my high school played
against the boomeracias and also ended up going to Maryland if memory serves.
So just a little house, you know, house.
creating that and make sure the fact.
people from Long Island, at least when I was younger, a lot of people from Long Island
would go to Maryland.
Amazing amount of people.
I don't know if it's true anymore, but it was like Long Island South.
Yeah, so, and just talk, you we're gonna have, we're gonna talk, I'm sure much more about
our experiences with the Giants and moving forward, but just the kind of the Reedus Digest
version, you know, so, you know, after, you know, I was able to, you know, be with my
father for the two Super Bowls in the, you know, the 80s.
So, you know, the first one in, against Denver.
which, you know, was, to me it was, I never thought the Giants were going to lose that
game.
And it was more of the games leading up to that that were of great excitement to me.
Of course, you know, to have the trophy in your hands was wonderful.
And now, you know, now you've, uh you know, have, you have credibility and have something
they can't take away from you.
And of course the game in 90 against Buffalo was just one of the great football games.
Of course I'm biased because the Giants are in the game, but that was a tremendous
football game.
I just fantastic.
And then the other two Super Bowls.
So after I left Oregon, I transferred with Intel to Boston and I've been living in Boston
ever since.
So I live in Boston now.
That's why I have this.
the hat on because it was three degrees this morning.
ah But you still have my family house on Long Island, so I go back and forth.
I'm a frequent floater on the ferry uh from Bridgeport to Portia.
But I was able, I actually went to the Giants, the first Giants Super Bowl against the
Patriots, and I wasn't going to go.
You know, because for a number of reasons, but mostly
I was scared they were gonna lose.
And I was actually convinced to go with my wife.
we'll talk about our wives later.
But my wife's from Istanbul and she doesn't, she never saw a football played before.
And she doesn't understand football.
She says, why are they pushing each other?
It's like being on the subway.
But she said, oh they're playing in a championship game.
you have to go.
You should go.
And she was the one that actually convinced convinced me to go.
And, you know, I harbor no wrong at all to the Patriots.
I mean, I wasn't a I didn't grow up here.
I don't I mean, I, I like the Patriots.
I root for them.
I mean, they're they're fine.
You know, but it was it was the undefeated team.
And uh it was my opportunity to go.
And I didn't have tickets.
And this could be a long story.
I don't want it to be, but I ended up meeting Willie Lanier on the plane, lying down.
if most people probably wouldn't know who he was, but he's a Hall of Fame line, a Hall of
Fame linebacker from the Chiefs.
What a nice guy, bright guy.
He was starting up businesses and just a wonderful guy.
We had dinner with him twice.
while we were down there, I lovely guy.
And uh what I didn't know at the time was that each Hall of Fame gets four tickets to the
Super Bowl.
At they did that.
uh so Willie was gracious enough to query his other Hall of Fame, Reverend, and he got us
tickets.
me and my friend Philip, who's an Irish guy, had, I'm not sure I'd ever been to a
football.
game before, a sports love.
I just went to a game with him.
I went to see Tottenham versus Austin Villa in London 10 days ago with him.
So he's a big sports fan and Willie got us tickets.
I think they were 1100 bucks.
It was 700 bucks face value.
uh And yeah, the best, the best 1100 bucks you could ever possibly imagine spent.
Just, just fabulous.
So, uh
And again, beating the Patriots again, again, I don't harbor any ill will towards the
Patriots.
I love the Patriots, they let us beat them in the Super Bowl twice.
uh And you know, and they're playing this weekend and I wish them well.
uh They're well-run franchise, I respect them.
And uh there's so many more details in between, which we'll probably cover in other
episodes.
But uh if I can, if it's appropriate, Harin, I'll just speak a little bit now about the
hiring of our new coach, if that's okay.
I know we skipped.
let me just uh you know what I'll tell my story another time.
I think that for time sake it's good that we I agree with you.
Let's talk about the new coach.
We got 10 to 15 minutes to do that.
Let's that's we normally would have uh probably talking the very first thing going forward
about that.
But you know this is our first episode, so I think it is good that uh we kind of.
introduced ourselves and kind of created some kind of uh resonance with people who
happened to trip over and uh see us that we're part of the tribe here, you know, the
Giants tribe here.
uh so having got that aside, yeah, I think it's uh very momentous uh time in the Giants
history this last week.
So what do you think about all this?
Well, I feel like I can breathe.
It's the way I'd sum it up.
Right?
mean, we talked, you talked before about apathy and, ah you know, that is a frightening
thing to feel with something that you've been so connected to.
And I know it's only a game and I don't want to be overly dramatic, but you know, watching
games the last three seasons, like it was a preseason game, you know, I mean, uh
And for the last, by the way, there's, you know, there's, we can't, you can't develop, you
know, a modern moniker for, for 12 years of shitty football when your team's won four
Super Bowls and eight and four other NFL champions.
So I'm, I'm, I'm not in that space at all.
Okay.
But, you know, you, don't want to feel.
You don't want to feel apathetic and they just take and, and again, we'll go into this in
more detail in other episodes, but I feel like I can breathe now.
I feel like I don't need to, I don't need to involve myself in the minutia.
I feel like this guy is a great person and a great football person.
uh
And he inspires confidence.
uh As a season ticket holder, he sent a message out, which uh again was uh very
significant to me.
I don't ever remember a coach sending out a message to the fan base.
And this guy seemed very genuine, very respectful of the giant fan.
uh
which he, I mean, and we're not unique.
I mean, I'm sure there's fans just like us for every team and every sport, but you know,
we happen to be so affiliated with this team.
And I just feel like, like I said, I can breathe again.
I can relax.
I know that we're in good hands that doesn't uh portend
guaranteed pretend any success or doesn't guarantee success, but I know or I feel that the
Giants are going to be respected again.
And I just want to share one quick experience again, going back to being petty and ah also
immature still with my free bus pass at 65.
You know, I still have lasting runker for the 49ers because it's just a team I can't
stand.
And I have lots of 49er friends who are great people.
got nothing to do with that.
This is my own immaturity, right?
Because we had such a rivalry with them in the 80s.
we really did well against them in the big picture thing, right?
mean, but still.
anybody else, yeah.
there was just something about them.
I couldn't stand back then.
They were just arrogant.
uh Something.
And again, they were great.
One of the best football teams of all time and great organization.
Always good.
Tremendous.
But I went to a game this year and the new stadium, we can talk about the new stadium and
the old stadium on another podcast, but it's just not the same experience.
And I think
with Jim Harbor, it'll start to recover.
You know, back in the old stadium, we knew everyone in our section, right?
I mean, I'm still friends with people in our section.
I don't know a single person in my section in the new stadium.
And every week, there's a different person sitting next to me.
also has been the whole StubHub.
Yeah, but so I went to the...
And I went to the Giants played the 49ers this year and I went to that game and there was
just an absolute...
mob of 49er fans.
I don't know where they came from.
You know, I know it's a pop, a popular team, but so were the Giants, right?
And that there was so many 49er fans and I met some of them, although from California and
good for them, man.
And I welcomed them, had a good chat with them.
And, but there's other fans, you know, from the local area and that's their absolute
right.
can do whatever they like and I'm not blaming them.
Why would I blame them?
They came the route on their team.
But the fact that the organization had got to the point where that was the atmosphere at
that game, where the Giants had to take time out because they couldn't hear on offense.
That was the first time that uh I could ever remember saying, am I going to get my season
tickets again?
And that again,
of all we do, we went through all these connections that we have with the team.
That is, I don't want to be overly dramatic and not frightening, but it's disappointing at
the very least.
And now with Gin Harbor, I don't feel that way.
I don't think we're going to have to feel that way.
I think that what you just expressed, I mean, I totally agree with it.
But I think that probably 95 % of the people who consider themselves rabid giant fans
would say exactly what you said in their own way of saying it, is that that kind of nails
it, is that.
You know, the last 12 years you're trying to jump on every piece of minutiae that try to
feed.
And now it's kind of like, and the real, guess the reason you're doing it is that you
don't really trust the people running the operation.
Okay.
And so you're going to personally analyze it and be like the GM yourself.
But now it does feel like uh for the first time,
they have somebody in there that is competent actually.
And they know what they're doing and you figure, okay, that guy knows more than I do.
I just trust him.
it's like, it's not even so much agreement as it's trust.
And on one of the other podcasts, and I always listen to this, is that,
One of the guys, I remember, I'm not gonna say who it was, but one of these podcasts we're
referring to, the host said that the major strategy that the giants have been running on
for the last 10 years is hope.
And now I don't feel it's, you know, but I totally get that.
It's like their strategy is hope, you know?
But now I think that what I'm feeling is,
Trust that there is trust in some but not hoping it's going to work out but that they
actually trust that it's going to work out and I haven't felt that in a long time and I
think that the people who are hiring this guy are not their strategy is and hope there
actually have somebody who that they trust with the operation and I at this point anything
could happen.
I remember when they had that.
the famous Joe Judge interview and the guy put on, that was the height of actually his
career as the coach was the introductory speech.
Cause he had this, that's right.
So he had this fiery speech and it was so good.
I remember it was so good that I'm feeling, wow, he's going to turn this around.
This is amazing.
But it wasn't.
If I look back on my emotion listening to it, I was buying into the hope that this guy who
had never been a head coach was gonna magically turn this team around, but there was no
evidence to prove it.
But he gave such a great speech that I was kind of seduced into this.
And then with Harbois, he didn't even have to give a speech for me.
already, the guy, his...
Body of work is enough for me to trust him.
And so I trust he's...
That's right, he's actually done it.
That's right.
That's what he's doing.
And not maybe that he's going to win a championship every year or even the championship at
all, but that they'll actually be competitive.
And, and, you know, it gets into this other thing that for him and the coach getting back
to, you know, the fact that we have been around this team for so long, actually through
various epics of football, that that era is a football.
So I'm going back to when they were playing, I mean, I'd followed the Giants when they
were playing in Yankee Stadium on dirt fields and this frozen dirt fields in December.
Now, you know, I've been through many, I've been through 65 iterations of this team and
football.
You've been through almost as many.
And so I think that probably, you know, while we're still coherent here, that we...
you know, we just have like a memory base that goes back so much farther.
And so ah we've seen a lot come and go.
And I think both of us kind of have a certain view of what's the real problem with the
team, what's the real strength in the team.
And one thing that's really kind of been a real lesson for me, especially in the last 15
years.
is that uh it's the players that bring the butts into the stadium and they're making the
big money.
But you gotta have a great coach.
You can't win without coaching.
And the Giants basically have not been a well-coached team.
I don't even know whether, people are always assuming their roster sucks and it may suck.
But I'm not knowledgeable enough a lot of times to know that because a lot of a team's
success is its chemistry.
You know, it's how the players play together.
So you can have a very talented roster, but they just don't play as a team.
They don't play well.
You can have teams.
You know, we just watched in college football in Indiana, when the championship, they're
arguably one of the best college football teams in history.
They are.
They're a phenomenal
college football team.
what people don't understand is that if you look that they're recruiting to their actual
how these the recruitment of their players, they were like the something like the 80th or
85th rated team far as the anticipated quality of their roster based on where they were
recruited.
They have most of the guys they got they even though they use the portal they got from
James Madison.
They have actually very few high-echelon players on their team, and yet the coach was able
to bring out the best of them.
There's other teams.
You know, I'm an Oregon fan, I'm big duck fan, and uh they had like the second or third
best, most talented teams by most measurements.
And they got their asses kicked by a team that had the 80th or 85th best roster.
but they had the best coaching.
And so over the years, ah it's questionable about the player acquisitions of the Giants in
the last 15 years, but we'll never know because to me, they're not a well-coached team.
And so they don't know what they're doing.
And this guy who they just got, they may not win the Super Bowl, but I believe they'll be
a well-coached team.
And we haven't seen that in
Yeah, and he also recognizes ah how we feel, how you and I feel.
You can see that in his tone and uh the respect he shows for oh the organization and the
fans, which I appreciate that.
Yeah, you just want to feel some sense of pride for your team, even if they're not great.
I they play hard, whatever.
I always admired the way Baltimore played.
Kind of old school, big offensive line, big defensive line.
mean, you were going to be in the cold tub after that game.
And I'm very happy to have that mentality come to the Jersey Swamp.
Well, this again goes back to some of our pasts is that, know, a lot of people, their
memory of Giants being successful were the two most recent Super Bowls.
We actually saw them in the three Super Bowls before that, especially the first two.
And we saw a certain brand of football.
And that's actually, and when I started following the Giants in the late 50s and early
60s,
That's the kind of football they were playing even back then.
And so naturally, I'm not surprised that the two of us really enjoy watching the Ravens
because that's like old time giant football.
And I think that, and that is always winning football.
It doesn't matter what year you're in.
It's basically, you stop the other team and you basically have the strategy to score
enough points because you trust your defense.
And the Giants have always won championships on defense and it's been humiliating what
they've been throwing out on the field the last 15 years.
and there's very few teams in the league that their ethos is defense.
the first thing you think about when you think about that team is defense.
The Giants were always one of those teams.
And you always had a chance.
And Baltimore is one of those teams.
And uh Chicago is one of those teams.
But there's not many of them.
The first thing is to think about defense.
And that's within the spirit of the fan base.
Even if they lose, if they're playing hard and you can see that there's genuine effort, ah
that's enough to satisfy, but at least to mollify the crowd eh for the time being.
Yeah, and you know, this year, I think some of the games just blew my mind, but they lost
so many heartbreaking games at the end of the game.
Although football has really changed since we started because now it's looking more like
basketball.
It looks like they played 58 minutes just to set up the game for the last two minutes.
It wasn't like that.
That's a big change in the game.
But the Giants always seem to lose those games instead of win those games, but they're in
a position to win them.
And I think that
That is really a reflection of coaching too.
I kind of agree with uh Harbaugh and it'll be interesting to see going forward because I
actually put a lot of the blame on the general manager and I thought some of the draft
picks that he made are mind boggling, turned out mind boggling bad.
And I thought maybe it was both, but.
management put the blame on the coach and time will tell whether they're correct because
it seems that the coach is satisfied with the roster he's working with, otherwise he
probably wouldn't have come here.
And they were good enough to win a lot of games before the season started.
Everybody agreed they had the hardest schedule in the league and they played a lot of.
They played, look at a lot of the teams they played went very far in the playoffs, and
they were down where they lost, they were leading the game like with two minutes to go.
So they're not, they're not shit.
You know, they have to be good enough that they're playing these teams tooth and nail for
58 minutes.
Well, the Napareth of talent, that's what the, I read somewhere, Hobo's father mentioned
that to him.
Hobo's father uh studied the giants and told his son, this team has talent.
I mean, what about a, what a football family that is.
I mean, boy.
And we've had so in particular, you know, you look even on your knowledge of football over
the last 10 years, they have generally their defense has been horrible and they've had
good players.
And look, you know, you got guys like Leonard Marsh, I like Leonard Williams and, and, and
love playing in the championship game and they are all pros.
Okay.
And you had these guys in your house and they played
well for you, but they played better elsewhere.
Yeah, I mean, there's a trail of dubious decisions, probably with every team there is, but
we're close to the Giants, so we tend to focus on that.
And probably more so the Giants than other teams, because you can see what the results
have been.
But very comfortable with, uh very thankful that we have this coach.
m
He's also a gentleman, man.
He's a guy that you just feel comfortable around.
You feel like he's not bullshitting you.
And he has the credential.
And he has plenty of empirical evidence to suggest he knows what he's doing.
yeah.
He's done this before successfully.
And football, a lot of it's all timing, right?
I mean, it's just lucky.
I mean, think about Kansas City, how lucky they were, right?
I mean, it just so happened they got Andy Reid at the moment that their quarterback who
was, I believe, was sitting behind another guy came the prominence.
I mean, part of that's luck.
I mean, you can't plan for everything.
Yep.
having, and having, you know, remember when this coaching started, you know, and they
fired him.
I'm like, all the names that were coming up aren't very satisfying.
And then Stefanski got fired.
I go, oh, well, he's pretty good.
You know, most of the talk before that was about the Green Bay's old coach.
Who could be a good coach?
Nothing.
against him.
But then Safanski came up and said, oh, this is a better option.
And then we're watching the Steelers.
uh
was rooting for that guy to miss the field goal because I really felt like going, please,
please miss this field goal because I thought for sure that he was going to be fired and
the Giants would have a good shot at him.
Just knowing how he was, I figured the Giants would be the kind of team he'd want to
coach.
And now I'm like three, four steps removed from reality, but it actually did happen.
It all happened.
and then as soon as it happened and he got fired, you said to yourself, this is the
Giants' chance.
Right now, do they have the organizational skill, ah moxie, whatever, to get this guy
in-house?
And they did.
And I think to some extent, the organization sold itself.
But you still got to be convinced.
No, they didn't.
did what they...
Yeah.
think there's a lot to be said for intransigence, right?
mean, Tom Coughlin was about to be run out of town and he changed.
He changed his way of thinking.
And I think this could be the Giants' brasses and intransigence breaking moment, right?
We'll see.
They may...
they may have lot much more power to this coach than they ever have to any coach because
they know what they've been doing for the past 15 years hasn't worked and that's a hard
thing to do.
So we'll see.
You know, you being an X and O's guy, ah that I'm sure you're not going to give the ah
credit to one individual's power of prayer, but God be my witness, when they were lining
up for that field goal, I'm praying to God for that thing to go wide right.
So, it did, it worked.
What?
it's tried and proven, but I like to feel like I had a part in the hiring as well.
So, thank you, that means a lot.
So anyhow, I think we're probably over what we even plan to do here, as far as length, but
I hope that there people who stayed on and felt this compelling enough to stay with us,
probably.
Our future episodes will be significantly shorter and we'll do shorts too.
But we wanted to introduce ourselves, give a little background about how we got here.
And then of course we ended talking about John Harbaugh.
So uh probably in the future uh Giants football and who knows what.
And uh please, we always have to mention this, please on.
uh
Please like and subscribe and let your friends know about it so we can grow a community of
uh of fans as rabid as we are and hope that you make the journey with us and uh We'll also
be on the audio platforms like Spotify and uh Apple and all that and so please like that
and again tell your friends about us and
Probably in the off season here, we haven't decided yet, but maybe once or twice a month
in the off season and then when the season starts, we'll probably do every week.
So anything you'd like to add, buddy?
Yeah, that, know, Hamid Am is the inspiration and motivation and set this all up, did all,
you know, and really did everything.
He's Johnny Carson.
I'm Ed McMahon when it comes to this podcast.
So I just want to acknowledge and thank you for, we talked about doing this for a long
time.
So I want to acknowledge and thank you for being the driving force behind.
And I really enjoy that analogy with Ed McMahon and Johnny Carson.
I'm very much willing to take the role of Johnny Carson.
I'm very willing to give you the role of Ed McMahon.
And I die in peace with that analogy.
And uh we'll see everybody in the next episode.
Thanks for being with us.
uh And uh go Giants.
Go Giants.