Zak Keefer
===

Vince: [00:00:00] Hey guys. Welcome back to another episode of the Summits podcast. Thank you all for joining us from wherever you get your podcast, or if you're checking us out on the Heroes Foundation YouTube channel. Thank you for doing so. Excuse me. New guest today, Mr. Zach Keifer.

Zach, welcome to Summit Podcast.

Zach: Thanks for having me. This is gonna be fun. 

Daniel: Yeah. 

Vince: Thanks for joining us. Um, why don't you give our listeners and viewers a quick background on yourself.

Zach: Yeah. Um, proud Indy, Anna Hoosier, native Hoosier. Um, didn't want to really wanna go anywhere else.

This is a great time of year in India. I was just thinking about that on the drive up May. The race is coming. Um, grew up going to Pacers games and Colts Games. And from a job perspective, I was always the weird kid in class who got excited when the teacher would give English papers, right? And like everyone would groan and I would be the guy that got excited.

So when I figured out there was a job where you could go to games and write about athletes and sports and these amazing games, I was like, that's what I'm gonna do. And I've really [00:01:00] never other considered anything else. So I, I covered the Indianapolis Cols and the N F L for the athletic. I am on TV sometimes for Wish TV in town.

I teach a class down at IU on sports writing, which I really enjoy in the spring. Um, so yeah, it's been a wild ride. For those of you that follow the Colts, it's been a very eventful, unpredictable, challenging last, um, couple of years. Um, did a big narrative podcast series on Andrew Luck last summer that really dove into his entire career and, and what happened and what at the end and why it happened.

But yeah, it's, it's, it's, it's an awesome job. It's challenging, it's unpredictable. You get to meet a, a lot of great people along the way.

Vince: Yep. Um, what grade were you when you, uh, got excited about the writing the English paper and then turned on into sports reporting?

Zach: I'm gonna say like sixth or seventh.

Okay. Hamilton Southeastern grad, went to iu, got a couple degrees there. So yeah, it's, it's been pretty much within these borders for most of the run.

Vince: Perfect. Um, [00:02:00] So we, we got, we, I met you initially back in the wintertime and you can't, you were kind enough to come in to do the, uh, CE for the Heroes Foundation.

Uneven with Heroes Gala. Um, thank you again for doing that. We appreciate it. We do have a, a commonality or a common, uh, connection, if you will. Is is your cousin, Jen? Jennifer. Um, Jen, who's a couple years younger than me, went to the, I, we went to IU about the same time. Um, so I think I had met her back then initially, but then she and her husband, um, at the time lived across the street from us back in the broader couple days, the early years.

There's a few stories there which we'll share for a different podcast.

Um,

What if you, if you will, when, when you got into sports riding,

what

did you know right away? Like, yep, this was, this was, this was the right choice. I was excited about it. Now I'm in it, and yep. I'm, I am. This is awesome. Or did it take you a while to kind of warm up to it and then

now that you've been [00:03:00] in it for x number of years, what, what excites you the most each day?

Getting up and, and, and doing it again?

Zach: I'll answer your last question first. The most exciting part for me. Is a blank page, right? Is, is getting the chance to tell a story. Writing's hard. It's like hard for me and I do it every day. It's really hard for, for most people. And so I like things that are consistently challenging you.

You never really master it. And the great thing about an NFL locker room is there's 53 guys in there, right? On the team. There's 53 different stories. None of these guys got to the NFL the same way. And it's my job to go figure out how they did that. You know, Darius Leonard, Shaq, Leonard. Now. Would sleep on a certain side of his body for years because he couldn't sleep on the other side.

Cause it reminded him of his brother who was killed in a shooting. And there's these layers to these guys and there's this human element that's so fascinating. And for a lot of people the NFL is just three hours every Sunday.

And

I've always been fascinated by the other hours [00:04:00] and, and, and the other layers to these people.

And so that's the most fascinating thing I've gotten to know Pat McAfee years before he became this. Bonafide celebrity and they got to know Andrew Luck really well. And you know, these guys have such interesting stories on how they got to the peak of their profession. I've always been more fascinated by that.

Um, and to answer your earlier question, the hardest thing Vince is, is not being a fan.

You really have to become almost robotic in a sense, and, and you're certainly still invested in a certain way. Like on Sundays when everybody's rooting for the cults, I'm rooting for the story. Selfish on my part, but that's my job.

Um, you know, I grew up in Indianapolis in the two thousands. What did everybody do? Rooted for paid Manning. Of course, the team just won. They just won every year. I think the city kind of took it for granted. It was, it was greatness before your eyes. And, you know, it was a hard pivot to covering the team and dealing with players who were angry at you, and executives who were angry at you and what you'd written.

Well, was anything factually incorrect? No. Well, okay. That I'm doing my job. Um, and, and [00:05:00] they're not winning like they used to. And so there's reasons for that. That's a hard pivot. But again, the NFL is such, it's just so interesting. There's so many storylines. It's never, there's never really an off-season.

Like we just got done with a draft a couple weeks ago, and that's like our biggest engagement in, in, in page views and, and subscribes of the year. That's not even during the season. So, um, it never ceases to be boring and that's always been attractive to me.

Vince: Yeah. If you weren't covering the Colts and aspects of the nfl, what would you prefer to cover?

Zach: Gosh, in a perfect world, golf, I love golf. They've let me cover the masters. They've let me cover the, uh, PJ Championship. A couple years ago in St. Louis, that was like candy land for me. Um, cuz I'm still a fan of golf and, and I don't really have to. Stay objective in that regard. So that, that was like just a, a retreat that was like, just, just straight fun.

So, but honestly anywhere, there's a great story I've written about every type [00:06:00] of sport there is. Um, anywhere there's a great story I'm in, I've written about a New York City mobster with no sports ties who hid in this city, Indianapolis for 10 years. Nobody knew he was here, hiding from his family in New York that was trying to kill him.

Wildest story of my career. Um, But it's just, he would go to Panera Bread every day and people didn't even know. There's like a guy whose family was mentioned in Goodfellas, the movie sitting a couple rows over. So, um, if there's a good story there, whether it's sports or not, I'm in,

Vince: I'll have to find that

story. 

Daniel: that's what I was just thinking. Yeah.

Vince: I did not know about

Daniel: one.

Yeah. Sounds like there's a new pod, another podcast series there. Yeah. 

Vince: Perhaps.

Um, so you're also teaching at iu, which I knew. When did that happen? And there's a certain, I mean, I'm being an IU fellow. IU grad, and I'm sure maybe you would say this about, about Purdue.

Um, something intriguing about that. Maybe it's a point in my life now where I'm like, that would actually be kind of cool.

Daniel: Yep.

Zach: I've done it four years now. I teach advanced sports writing. Can't do it in the fall cuz of football [00:07:00] season. Um, it's hard. Teaching's hard, like the amount of time you spend grading it, it really adds up.

But I really enjoy it. So a lot of the students come into my class, come into the program. We have a great program, the iMedia School. I love sports. I wanna do this for a living. Yeah. Well, it's very, very different. Mm-hmm. When you actually do it for a living. Right. So, you know, I ask him on the first day, who's your favorite sports castor writer radio person?

And I cringe when a couple of 'em say, Stephen A. Smith or Skip Bayles. I'm like, no. Like, we wanna get to like the ones who do like the real, you know, like please say a writer or, or someone. Um, and so I think the, the most gratifying thing for me is to get them to understand what makes a good story. And why It's a good story.

So we read a lot of good stories. I have a lot of guest speakers come down and talk. Chris Ballard, the Colts. Jim has come down and talked several years in a row just from his perspective on dealing with the media when reporters have gotten things wrong. You know, how he treats local reporters versus national reporters.

Um, and by the end of the class, I think a lot of the [00:08:00] students would say, Their views on the industry have changed dramatically. And there's some that have gotten really good jobs and it's, it's really fun to work with them cuz it's a different media landscape now than it was when I came out in 2008. I mean, it's just, there was no Twitter, social media wasn't

such an instrumental part of our job, so it's, it's completely different now.

Vince: Do

you think that makes the job easier or much harder? Or maybe a combination of both? 

Zach: There's both.

I, there are days when I wish it didn't exist. Yeah. It cheapens the experience, right? It, it's too fast, too simple, too narrow. But there are also really good advantages in terms of I can get my story out to every follower I have out there in a matter of minutes.

Right. And you can share that and that matters. You want people to come to your content. Um, but it, it, it certainly has, uh, it's sad to say, I can't imagine doing my job without it. I don't know if that's a good thing or bad thing.

Daniel: Hmm. Yeah.

Vince: know you're, you're pretty active. I, I see you on Twitter quite a bit.

Um,[00:09:00] 

let's say you put an article out and. There's a, a good chunk of the Twitter population, if you will, that don't like the article for whatever reason. Um, obviously it gives them, they can hide behind the, the phone, right? They can go on there and bash you, whatever. And I'm sure that's probably happened.

How do you deal with that?

Zach: I would say you get used to it over time. Um, it's certainly part of the job in the nfl. Yeah. That's what makes the NFL great, is the interest. Everybody has an opinion and it's certainly heightened in the off season because there's no real answers coming. Right. There's no games to play for six months during the season.

They have, you know, A verdict every Sunday. It's, it's a winner lost league. It's, it's Monday is either you won, you lost, the sky is falling, or you could go to the Super Bowl. And that's the fun part cuz the interest is huge and every week feels like a weekly war. That's what Andrew Luck called at one time, a weekly war.

Then it feels like that. And that's maybe overdramatizing a little bit. But, um, the one thing I do is you [00:10:00] can disagree. I don't do opinion pieces often. It's more analytical, but, My facts are inaugural. Like these are, these are the facts. And, and I've dealt with, and I've had heated conversations with Jim Mercer and Chris Ballard about all these kinds of things and players, but these are the facts.

This is the reality. And my view has always been, I don't owe it to the team. I don't work for the team. I owe it to the reader to keep it real. And if I'm not keeping it real with the reader, then why are they gonna read me? Like I always say, there's eight or nine of us that are at every single practice, every single game the whole year that cover the team.

Readers can read anybody they want. Why are they gonna read you? Hopefully because you're doing something a little bit different. And that's what I try to do. You can't always do that. But I try to tell them the story they've never heard before. I try to do something that no one else is doing. And, and, and that's the reality.

And, and humanizing the players is part of that. But also, yeah, you deal with the criticism, but, um,

If you don't get things wrong, you know, people usually over time come to respect your opinion if they don't agree with it. Sure. I mean, I covered Carson once it's loan season. That was, that was a [00:11:00] very, very hotly debated season in Indie and you get used to it, but, um, at the very least they respect you that I've been there for a while.

They know that my view is not just something I pulled out 

Daniel: Yeah. Yeah.

Vince: Um, You mentioned, you're there at literally almost every practice. Correct?

Zach: Everyone from August until whenever it ends.

Vince: This may be a dumb question, but like, like you have full ac, they, well, I don't say full access, but you have access being there. Um, is that, is that normal that you would have that much media there?

That often,

Zach: so

it's broken up. Training camp is open. Every minute of practice. So sometimes it's two hours and 30 minutes. Um, and that's great. You can learn a lot. You can learn who's playing well. Like last year we were like, the offensive line doesn't look great. What happened in September and October? It fell apart.

They blew it up in October. Um, in this season, once the season starts, we only get about 15 to 20 minutes, which is a huge difference. They're obviously not gonna show us plays they run and all that. Okay. Totally understand that. [00:12:00] Competitive advantage, basically in the season, you're just checking to see who's there.

This guy's hair, he, he's probably playing this Sunday. This guy's hair, he is probably hurt. He's not playing, not nearly as fun, but you can learn a lot showing up, um, because that's, you know, from my end, we wanna see the real, we don't wanna see what they've. The cliches in the press conference, we wanna see the actual football because, um, that's where you learn the most,

Vince: right? Yeah. Um, may growing up in Indy, different sport, but are you a race fan?

Zach: Yeah, absolutely. I love, I love the Indianapolis soccer I wrote years ago about, essentially why did it become what it became, right? And, and Tony Holman's saving it and. The early years, like people were dying every other day at the track and there was national protest to shut this place down.

And so they built the bricks and that helped a little bit. But, uh, it's a fascinating story. It's an amazing survival story, the track [00:13:00] itself. And, um, it's the best place in the world in May as far as I'm concerned.

Vince: Yeah. So you go to the race every year?

Zach: Yeah. Yeah. My favorite story was Doug Bowles, um, who's the president of ims.

Let me shadow him for a day during race week.

Vince: When

Zach: we're talking like

Vince: like, relatively recently.

Zach: uh, 15 or 16.

Vince: Okay. Okay.

Zach: And we're talking like, I met him at 4:00 AM and I left him at like 1130 that night. And that's his day every day in May. Yeah. And we talked to everyone you could think of, like every living champion, he would just bump into them.

Mario Andretti. One minute. AJ Foyt. The next, every, you know, current driver. Scott Dixon's, right here. Frank Kek. Like it would just. It was like having a backstage pass to the entire, like open wheel racing circuit. And it was awesome. And I slept for like two days afterward before I wrote the story because Doug just like, he drank like six cups of coffee and just like, he just powered through it.

Vince: I, he, so I, I know Doug a little. Um, but you're so, so, so true. I mean, it. [00:14:00] That dude is on it all month long and they're really, this isn't to pad pad you, Doug, but like, um, I'm pretty confident when Penske bought the Speedway, like, he was like, I'm not changing that because if, if there's one guy you want running it, and this is the face of this place, it's Doug Bulls,

Zach: he can't walk five feet.

In the, in the speedway without someone stopping him. The fans

Vince: Yeah. I say it doesn't have to be just Roger or their drivers. It's the fans who all know who he is

Zach: it's cuz he's not just the guy who runs the speedway, he's, he's like us. He just loves racing. Yeah, yeah. And it's not a job to him. And so he, he takes it very seriously.

But it was, it was, it was really fun to see everything that goes into his job and how little time he gets to breathe that, that this time of year.

Vince: Yeah. Yeah. There's, there's no question his passion for, for ims, uh, the Speedway or IndyCar in general. Um, well, changing gears a little bit, uh, we, we talk about May and being in, you know, the month of Indy 500 here, of course, uh, but may also happens to be Brain Cancer Awareness [00:15:00] Month.

Um, so Zach, I know you have a story there, so what, what is your cancer story?

Zach: Yeah, so it was May of 2014, just the curve ball of all curve balls for our family. Um, I was in the middle of a Pacer's playoff series. I was in between like, the playoffs are crazy. You're like on a flight at a hotel or at an arena.

You don't even know which day it is. You just know what game is next, game four, game five, whatever. And my mom calls me and my dad had a weird eye exam of all things, and the optometrist told her to maybe go get something checked out. Long story short, stage four brain cancer, it was the worst. Word. I think if you know what this word means, then you do, you agree.

It's, it's glioblastoma. It's what John McCain had. Um, and so it just rocked our family immediately. And, and I know a lot of people out there listening probably have, have dealt with similar situations, di similar conversations, like where, how, why us? Um, [00:16:00] and he had surgery and I think our hope was that a lot of it would get removed.

A lot of the tumor would come out. And I remember sitting in this room at Community North and hearing. I did as much as I could, but it, a lot of it's still in there. And that was sort of like your heart drops outta your body and then the process begins of just this completely new world where everything is upended.

Um, so that was March, that was May of 2014, and he passed away in March of 2015. So about 10 months. 

Daniel: Okay. 

Zach: A lot happened in that time I got married. That was stressful in itself. He was up, he was down. Medications, mood changes, the body breaking down. He retired from his job. Um, but yeah, it, it felt like a long time, but it was really just 10 months and it was just, um, it was, uh, unimaginably difficult.

Daniel: Mm-hmm.

Vince: Um, what, this doesn't sound weird, but like, [00:17:00] what, what do you remember most about those 10 months that you had with him? Did you think? Like I need to make the most of the time we've got, or was the mindset still like, Hey, maybe, maybe there's a chance and we will find something, or something will work and We'll, and it won't be 10 months.

It'll be 10 years.

Zach: Yeah, it's the latter. I think you, there's a denial that everyone goes through and you believe that it's not gonna be 10 months, you believe it's gonna be five years, and you have those good days. And those good days give you that reassurance even though they're false, right? They're, they're, they're a tease.

Um, and so, you know, especially when it's your dad, your father, like the person who shows you like what work looks like and what you know values are and like, who's never been hurt before. You know, that was my dad to me. He had a, he knew everything. He taught me everything. And so to see him vulnerable and hurting and incapable of doing simple things like driving a car.

Remember this argument we had about, he was, he, he was [00:18:00] driving the boat at the, up at the lake house. And he just wasn't seen. His peripheral vision was off and I had to be the one that was like, you can't drive anymore. And he was a control freak and he wouldn't let go of that. And these medications are just amplifying his anger.

Yeah. And so you have to be the bad guy. And that was just hard to like remove their freedom from them. Um, and there was a little bit of that. And then like the next week he would have a good day. And it's just like, like you said earlier, like you try to make the best of it, but dealing with the emotional.

War, for lack of a better phrase, uh, was really hard on me. It was really hard on my mom. Um, but again, you, you feel like it's a long time. Cause you're just going day by day and you're like, we're doing okay, but 10 months it feels like a blitz creek. And then by the end he's in the hospital every day and you're, you're just trying to grasp for hope.

And hope is just slowly fading away and it's just, you can't see it straight. I don't, at least we couldn't, you cannot see it straight at that

Daniel: point.

Vince: Well, it's been, it's been eight years. What would you think your [00:19:00] dad would say to you today as he's witnessed you in the last eight years? What, what do you hope he would say to you and what do you, what do you hope that, uh, that you've done over this past eight years to make him proud?

Zach: That's heavy. Um,

Vince: Um,

Zach: it's funny cuz people will be hesitant to bring it up and I'm sure those that have have lost. You know, people are, they tiptoe around it, and I'm like, it's okay. Don't, like, I think about it every day. It's not like you're gonna surprise me with this thought. Um, especially with two little kids.

I hope my dad would say, you're a great dad, because that's everything. Um, I've got a five year old and a three year old. Both are girls and like, just, just kills you every day that they're not able to see their grandpa and he's not able to, you know, enjoy that time with him. He earned that. He deserves that.

Every, every dad deserves that. Um, But I think you lean on advice from friends and you, and you lean on the memories and you keep his memory. We talk about 'em. Um, but I don't, I would, you know, he would be happy [00:20:00] with any success I've had in work and, and all that. But mainly it's just, it's the kids. I think that's, that's, that's the biggest thing I think for him.

Vince: Yeah.

I would, I would say the same thing. So my wife lost her mother, um, a few years after he got married, so before. We had kids, so obviously she's, you know, she hasn't known any, any of them. And, um, that's probably one of the, the things that sticks with

Zach: just so unfair. 

Vince: Yeah.

Um, what, uh, what questions do you have for us, Mr.

Mr. Reporter? Man,

Daniel: a scary, that's a scary question.

Zach: Where are we going with this? Um, I

Vince: I don't know. Where, where are you gonna go with

Daniel: this? Mm-hmm.

Zach: I'm pretty good at thinking on my feet. What have you guys learned through this process that, that has surprised you as many people as you talked to as many different experiences as you've worked through and heard.

Vince: Mm-hmm.

Zach: You've

probably heard almost everything, but what are the [00:21:00] moments that have surprised you the most? Because every experience is different.

Vince: Yeah. I'm gonna let you answer that one.

Daniel: Yeah. I think it's, um, well one is just always trying to improve it, right? Just how surprising it is to continue to not, not doing it, doing it's the fun part, but. Looking at 'em, okay, how can we do it better? How can we, who, who's, who do we reach out to? Who do we talk to and, and how do we keep to improve it?

And, and things like that. And that's just more, I guess more of the back end. Um, the more surprising thing is just the variety of stories that we have. And I've said it a couple times, but um, it's how surprising sometimes some of the guests we've had, it's the first time they've either. Either they've shared their story wholly or they've shared a part of it that they hadn't shared before or something like that.

And, and then how surprising it is, like when that happens and, and, um, you know, you know, emotionally like here in the room as well as for them and things like that [00:22:00] is, is always something that's, it's surprising, but rewarding I guess. It's kind of weird to say, but, um, just meeting the guests and understanding where they came from, what they're going through, and then, um, just hopefully that it helps someone else out there.

Zach: I think it's, um, From this seat, it's therapeutic and everyone works on a different timetable. But Vince, after the, after the gala in January, four to five to eight people came up to me and said, I lost my mom from the same thing, from brain cancer, from glioblastoma.

Daniel: Mm-hmm.

Zach: And she's like, I hadn't talked to anybody about it in a year.

You know, and then we talked for 10 minutes and it's like, I knew her life story and I think that helps a lot, that companionship. And we shared so many of the same situations, like the same symptoms and all that, and it's hard to go back, but to know that you have someone in your corner that dealt with it, it's, it helps a lot, I think.

Mm-hmm.

Daniel: Mm-hmm.

Vince: Well, that word therapeutic that you just used, um, we've heard that multiple

Daniel: times.

Vince: with several of our guests. Mm-hmm. We had some folks who [00:23:00] were really, um,

they

agreed to come on, but they weren't really sure. They weren't feeling, feeling the warm and

Daniel: They were reserved, yeah.

Vince: And then once the episode was over, they're like, you know what?

I'm so glad I did that. It was very therapeutic. Um, which is great. To me, like to answer the same question, like, I have no journalism background, have never done this before in my life. Daniel brought the idea to us and said, Hey, let's, let's do this podcast. And after we thought about it for a while, um, but like, you, like I love doing it.

Like

Daniel: Mm-hmm.

Vince: it's fun. Um, I don't think I'm very good at it. And we, you know, like anything else we get a little bit better the more we do. But, uh, um, At the end, and it's always checking the, the views and, and the any comments that actually happened or stuff like that. And of course the, the competitive part of me was like, okay,

Daniel: this one

Vince: only got 12 views.

Like, what the hell we got? That was a great 

Daniel: Yeah. Yeah. 

Vince: another episode, not that any of 'em are bad, they're all great. Um, another one that was like, it was okay got, [00:24:00] you know, 500 views. Like why did that like

Zach: It's hard to make sense of that. Oh, we do that in our world. Why did this story, which I thought was really good, not do anything.

Yeah. This one wasn't very good, but it blew up. Yeah. It's, it's best not to worry about it. I,

Daniel: I think. 

Vince: Yeah.

yeah, I mean, at the end of the day, it,

you

know, this is not a, this is not a job. It's, it's, it's not putting money in our pocket. It is. It's not why we do it. Right. Um, and. What, like Daniel said, the, the most rewarding piece is, is just knowing that people enjoyed coming on.

Mm-hmm. If they found a therapeutic, hey, awesome. Um, and or if they provided a story that maybe somehow benefits someone else. We've had a few phone calls

Daniel: Yeah. And a

Vince: few email interactions where, um, a piece of information was shared in a story and someone actually benefited from that, which that's, that's great.

Zach: Yeah. And that's, and this is what I shared at the, at the gala in January. It's like, The best piece of advice I got was from another, a friend of ours, a family friend who lost his dad, the same thing, and this is just off the cuff. We were just talking and he said, [00:25:00] look, you can't change what happened, but you can live every day to make your dad proud.

And for some reason that just clicked. And so you guys don't know, but any moment of these podcasts, someone listening, it could just click. Mm-hmm. And usually it's from someone who's been through a similar situation, but you just don't know. And he probably didn't think that would change. I mean, literally that changed my mindset on everything, every day moving forward.

That was the mindset. I don't know why it hit, but it just did, and that's how I've approached everything since. And so when I tell people what to think about when I, when they go through these horrible situations, one is I. The stages of grief are real and you need to embrace them. Like, it's okay to be mad at the world for a couple days or weeks.

It's okay to cry, like crying's healthy. It's, you know, it's okay to move through those and embrace them and not try to push them away. But then that last piece of advice, which someone could just drop in here and you guys probably don't even notice it

Daniel: it. Yeah, yeah.

Zach: things can really hit home. And, and when you're going through these different things, you don't see things the same way.

And, and sometimes things just [00:26:00] resonate when you least expect it.

Daniel: Yeah. Yeah.

Vince: Well said. Well, I think that common alone, your dad will be proud to hear you say. We appreciate you helping us, support us, being part of the gala, coming on here and, and sharing your story.

Um, so thank you for doing that.

Daniel: Yeah, thank you.

Vince: Um, keep up the good work.

Zach: Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Guys.

Vince: Guys, go uh, go kick the colts in the ass for

Daniel: Yeah, it's all good, man.

Zach: Over at 56th Street.

Vince: till I'll tell a Rich welcome in the other rookies. Welcome to Indy. Um, you know, there's, if they don't know this, um, tell them the story of what Indy is, meaning.

New York City is seven Ways to Kevin Bacon here. It's only two. I know the Col organization has, it's a, it's a machine, but you know, if, if they, there's a community behind them, not just, you know, sports fans. And if like any other, Hoosier, if there's a way we can help or assist system with

Daniel: anything.

Mm-hmm.

Zach: I think they will feel that.

A lot of players I've talked to. One, they don't know anything about Indie when they get here, besides maybe the racing or Peyton Manning. Sure, yeah. But when they start [00:27:00] to get in the communities, they love it because the people are just good people. Like that's just, it's just real. And you can't fake that.

And it takes time. But I think they'll feel that, and I think the city's hungry for a winner consistently. They've been close a little bit of getting things together the last couple years, and it all bottomed out. I think they're ready to see this done. Right?

Daniel: Yeah. 

Vince: Cool. Well, thanks again. We

Daniel: appreciate it. Yeah, thank you.

Vince: Thank you. And thank all you guys for tuning into this episode of the Summits podcast. We appreciate you guys tuning in from wherever you get your podcasts, and for those of you watching on the Heroes Foundation YouTube channel, thank you for doing so. And don't forget, guys, the whole point of this is, Beat cancer.