The Billionaire, the Billboards and the Star of the Worst Ad in Sports History (PTFO Vault)

Welcome to Pablo Torre finds out I am Pablo Torre and today we're going to find out what this sound is I touched the ball before we're not coached right after this ad I have this issue when I like go out and I talk to people in real life and they're like so what do you do? And I have to explain what my show is and I've settled upon I've settled upon Zach a summary which is basically I use journalism to solve mysteries that are technically about sports It's a good way to put it. It's a very good way to put it I know I only just recently started calling myself a like journalist because like like produce some stuff and then I like Did social media and made memes for people for a long time? But the real like lead of your of your bio now is Zach Schwartz guy who is truly unparalleled in a very specific obsession about the worst commercial in the history of sports My wife said that's when I found that your real sports over is when you were like trying to find this guy and how obsessed you were with it because is very early on in our relationship and I had to find him I want to explain what this commercial is because it's not really selling a product I guess It stuck with me that like I remember seeing it in the wild like on television obviously before it started going viral It ran all the time especially during March madness If you Google the term worst commercial ever in quotes on YouTube This is right there in the first couple of results is over a million views on that video alone There are many many more it goes viral seemingly all of the time I feel like we should just play it yeah because this is what this again viral commercial Sounds like Any high school gym in America sort of looks like this We see the scoreboard to start the game. It's a 63 65 9 seconds left. Oh God We see team in the white jerseys on a fast break uncontested Easy dunk. Yeah, here comes the trap They're bringing me to my fresh trap quick all goes to the side line, which is not really where you're supposed to throw it in that situation No, we see a player white tip the ball at about The important part is the raft didn't see the ball go off the kid in what Jersey Coach calls his time out. I'm I got the perfect Side line out of bounds for this. I'm gonna cook here. They all go to the huddle to get the play Yeah player who we think tip of the ball out, but they didn't call it on him It has this very guilty look on his face. He has a truly this is like the dictionary definition of a hang dog look His eyes are as big as saucers his lip is basically quivering He is looking up a polygetic seemingly for what he's about to reveal I touched the ball before we're not coach. Come on Alex the right to not call it got to kill me Alex. It's the championship game I touched his they're both his teammates are furious quite upset a kid with acne is as mad at Alex as a person can be that's that Accutane rage Sorry coach Alex and the coach gives Alex to like, you know what you do what you think is right And we see Alex brought over to the raft to snitch on himself and the commercial ends with a Sportsmanship pass it on message. Yeah values.com the foundation for a better life It feels like a commercial about sports made by people who have never seen sports before Yeah, it's like this is what you should do as if this is a plausible thing that anybody in that very specific circumstance or whatever actually do Totally and like there are so many other ways to do this ad that would be plausible like someone sets a really hard ball screen You run over and help the guy up that's sportsmanship, but no one's snitching at this level I mean if anything the players like turning to the guy like I totally tipped that to the opponent and walking off Like you're not telling the ref that and just to give a sense of like the level of obsession that people have had with this Specific scenario played out this way. I heard Rodgers Silo and Bill Simmons talk about this at one point a couple years back And the player looks at coach. He's like coach It was off me And coaches like looking at him being like there's a real lesson lesson here as a teaching moment and the whole team's looking at the kid And then the kid goes up to the ref for the first time in the history of Anything where he goes to the refs like hey, it was off me and the refs like all right balls the other way and then it's like That's the lesson. I think it had to have been a religious thing for bounty towels or it was for towels Yeah, it was one of those one of the two things and people have been fascinated with this ad for years You've never seen this ad. I remember it, but it was it was what 10 15 years ago It was to say wow a scholar's of argued. It's timeless Tiktok captions because it's obviously me this way over there I'm they include things like quote they definitely jumped Alex in the locker room a lot of us and the cultural spectrum on this Extends obviously to like bar stool sports which has labeled this with a headline quote March Madden is commercial about sportsmanship features the biggest nerd ever and the write-up says Alex Alex deserves to have all of his clothes thrown in the shower and quote it just recirculates Because everybody is cringing and then choosing to dunk on this incredibly implausible morality play and God, yeah, Alex kind of became the lightning rod for all of it and so for you When did you begin to wonder? Okay, everybody keeps talking about Alex. Yeah, who is he? When does that question first enter your mind? So I used to host this podcast for wave all the out of pocket And it was just I johnson and with jethron Jacobs two guys who are very good at NBA Twitter And the whole sort of center of all this is NBA Twitter anyone that's spent any Time on NBA Twitter knows this ad. It basically goes viral every six months so We were doing our show wave. It just brought in Paul George George's show is blowing ours out of the water and I'm like I got to find a guest for our show that Paul George could never get for his Like what's the most viral basketball thing that people would be like oh my god. You found that guy And it was Alex It became pretty clear as soon as I started looking into this myself that Alex was not eager to be discovered That's where the journey sort of started. I was like I'm gonna do it for our season finale episode I think I had three weeks like I'll find him that's so much time It took a lot longer than three weeks. It took I think like two and a half years basically to find out How did you start your quest to find Alex? So first it was reverse image searching his face and seeing if I could find anything off of that cuz that's like that hey like Maybe the reason no one's done this video or found him is because they weren't using the modern tools that we have today Didn't work So then for those that don't know IMDB is a database where you can look up actors for movies They have something similar for actors and commercials. So I was like okay. I'll use that nothing couldn't find anything there I started reaching out to friends of mine that directed commercials In LA like hey is there a database or a casting director you could put me in touch with and they kind of were like From an ad that long ago no one I know would work on it. And so Okay, let's see if the charity can help So this charity this foundation which again in the commercial. It's flashed on screen at the very end The foundation for a better life at values.com like she's calm. Yeah, when you start to look into this website What do you begin to see? It's just not enough information out there about the foundation. There's no interviews or articles and It kind of triggered this sort of siren in my head like something weird is happening here because no one talks No one's ever written a profile about the foundation or what they do The website for the most part looks like he was designed in 2011 and just left The text on the website sack it's so anodine I'll read it off of the site right now. They say quote We choose values we hope most individuals would find encouraging and relevant Then we provide an uplifting message based on each value in an effort to encourage people to bring out the best in themselves Have they go on as a non-partisan non-sectarian organization We carefully design our public service messages to have general universal appeal and then they say The foundation's small staff works with the network of writers our directors and production professionals And none of that is very helpful No, none of that is like giving us an actual detail. I select so what do you guys do here? And so, you know, I called them. - It's one of those calls where you put on the nicest voice. (phone ringing) (phone ringing) - Hi, my name's Zach and I have an obsession with this really famous ad that you guys made from a long, long time ago. - This ad that I definitely haven't made fun of online with millions upon millions of people exactly like me. - And I was like, can you please just help me locate the actor? - The secretary was very kind. I would love to help you in like, what a neat project. You know, unfortunately, I can't release any names. You basically have to write the CEO and get his consent and he'll release the information deal. So then I emailed the CEO and he was really dismissive. I read his message, he's very like, I'm not releasing the name to you, sorry, go away. And that made me more mad. - Oh yeah. So then I'm like, what is this foundation? Why are you being secretive? Why are you trying to hide who this person is? So I did the next logical thing and I pulled like 13 years worth of their tax records. (laughing) (upbeat music) - So in the limited research that I have done compared to your mountain of deep diving's act, the first thing you realize when you research the foundation for a better life on YouTube, is that Alex is not alone. Because apparently there is a whole catalogue of commercials beyond simply the story of Alex and sportsmanship. That are about stuff like not shoplifting CDs. This one's titled Do the Right Thing. - Come on man. - I do it quick, no one's watching. (upbeat music) - The other one too. - Good job. Do the right thing. Pass it on. A message from the foundation for a better life. - And then there's also this one that I wanted to play for everybody 'cause it's called umpire. - My father was a great hitter, but he knew that life was about more than just one game. - It's like a sepia toned. Almost old-timey baseball kind of aspect here. ♪ Who you are today and who you'd like to be ♪ ♪ And no matter the decision, there'll be one more coming through ♪ - Oh, he was so safe. - The umpire is called a man out who was safe by a zillion miles. - So when that umpire made a bad call that ended the game for dad and then needed help with his car, my father made the right call. - Helping others, the right choice. Pass it on. - And so who is the person behind these ads, Zach? Who is the person that the secretary and the CEO unhelpfully in the end would not connect you to? - His name's Philip Anshus. - He is a billionaire and he's been a billionaire for a very long time. - Forbes Magazine has their list of the wealthiest Americans and four of a Coloradans make the top four hundred. They got money. Number one is a surprise. Philip Anshus, the wealthiest person in our state with a net worth of 16.9 billion dollars. That makes him 45th for the USA. - Only. - Only. - CNN called him the richest Americans you've never heard of. Fortune also called him the greatest executive. He started writing his dad's oil business at the age of 20. Made his money drilling, fracking, also ran a Union Pacific Railroad. - As an adult, I've spent my business career working on companies and in industries that have always been firmly rooted in the West, often companies that are quite historic in nature. - And then, you know, things that maybe are more in our lives than oil and railroads is that he owns AEG, Anshus Entertainment Group who does Coachella, they own Crypto.com Arena. And he's also managed to kind of scoop up a few different sports teams, L.A. King's, L.A. Galaxy. And then he's financed movies, Chronicles and Narnia. He did the movie Array. Like, he's kind of everywhere, but you have no idea that he's there because he is truly one of the most like behind the scenes billionaires ever. - He has his name on the Championship Profi in Major League Soccer. And yet, I have never until talking to you for this episode thought, who the fuck is that guy? - I found it very interesting that this person who has Coachella, which is about as godless of a place as you can go legally. Also, he pushes these very conservative God forward, church forward messages. ♪ Two more than I can be ♪ - And so that was very interesting, kind of as I dove deeper and deeper and found out about the different groups that he was kind of financing and funding and some of the initiatives that they were behind. - Yes, so just to tick off some of them here, the Federalist Society, which is a very famous historic at this point conservative and libertarian legal organization. He's a big donor to them, it turns out. The Heritage Foundation, the right-wing think tank, and shoots is also a big donor to them. He also appears in New York Times headlines, such as, quote, "Neal Gorsuch has web of ties to secretive billionaire." The billionaire being Philip Anschutz, Neil Gorsuch, aforementioned, being the Supreme Court Justice now. This goes back to the 2000s, I guess, when Anschutz and his companies hired said "Future Supreme Court Justice" as their outside counsel. He has simply he's at one of the most conservative owners in all of sports. He's given to Republican candidates. - Anschutz has reportedly funded anti-gay ballot measures, anti-union, anti-weed, anti-science. I mean, there's a lot of things that he's done over these years and you're kind of like, okay, so the foundation for a better life is sort of just like the diet version of those messages, if you will. He's sort of like stripped off all the nasty parts that he's doing over on the side there. - The part that I do need to say, I guess, for legal reasons is that Philip Anschutz is the type of guy also who does not grant interviews. The New Yorker, by the way, has reported previously that he does not even use a cell phone or email, but he also declared that reports about his donations to homophobic political organizations were, quote, fake news and garbage. And he indicated that he stopped funding said groups, which, to his apparent surprise, did support such causes. But as much as he is trying to not actually be heard in public, he did find a bit of rare video of this man. This is at the 84th annual US Conference of Mayors. It was 2016, and it's a translator who was translating for the Dalai Lama, and next to them is Lady Gaga. Here is Philip Anschutz actually speaking out loud. - You have a leader of one of the world's great religions. You have a world class entertainer, and then you have this obscure business guy. And it's unlikely that we're discussing kindness of all things, not a very precise term. - So if you're wondering how rich Philip Anschutz is, he has the kind of money where Lady Gaga and the Dalai Lama are just chilling on stage, listening to him talk about sportsmanship or whatever. Things like fairness, trust, learning, perseverance, love, patience, optimism, humility, confidence, civility. These are universal values that transcends race and religion and politics. - I like that he had to go into his coat to take out the values that he wanted to specifically name. Brother, you can't just name like loyalty sportsmanship, honesty, respect off the top. Like, you had to go to the note that, yeah. - But all of it is to say that yeah, like the diet religiosity of this meant for broad appeal. It feels like a motivational college dorm room poster. Like that's what this whole thing is. - All the ads read very much like the poster of the cat is like hanging from the tree and it's like hanging there. All of the ads kind of read like that. This whole operation that Anshutes has funded. It seems like their mission, if nothing else, is to be as omnipresent as they can be. - Yeah, it's billboards, radio ads, TV ads. The billboards were really mocking me and seeing them everywhere, seeing them on Santa Monica Boulevard and you're the 405. It sort of led me on my spiral where I felt like Jill and Hall in Zodiac where it's just like this thing is sort of taking over my life to degree, they didn't really shouldn't. There's this wonderful one that Shaq is a part of. - He's holding a basketball, wearing a cap and gown and it looks like he's gonna be fine. he loves civility. Yeah, I mean, it's his perseverance. He's holding a basketball like he got his doctorates degree in basketball, which he did do. But in your defense, just psychologically speaking, the foundation did release the following statistic. The campaign has apparently aired in more than 200 countries. Neilson says that the ads at one point had more than 10 million impressions each day on US network television. And then current affairs magazine estimated that there were once as many as 10,000 billboards, Zach, across the United States. Apparently, according to the outdoor advertising association of America, it is the most widespread and successful PSA billboard campaign in United States history. They're everywhere and they're, they're the reach for these campaigns is so impressive. And I reached out to a friend of mine that worked in advertising actually for Viacom for a long time. He did TV ad sales. The way he kind of broke it down for me is that like, you know, we talk about the Alex ad running during March madness. Well, those spots for March madness could be hundreds and hundreds of thousands of dollars. And so he kind of gave me a wide range of what they could be like, you know, it's something like late at night could be in the tens of thousands of dollars to, you know, a March madness spot that could be hundreds of thousands of dollars. So these spots are obviously very valuable. They're running all the time because the foundation doesn't have some huge operating budget to go out and buy ad times. I was trying to figure out how they're getting these ads on billboards or on TV. And the way it works is if you as a network have ad inventory, you could take that and donate it to them and ride off on your taxes and basically say, Hey, that inventory that I gave away was worth a million dollars, a hundred thousand dollars, a couple million dollars. Good on me, pat on the back. I did my thing. I'm writing that off on my taxes as a network saying, I made this wonderful charitable donation. And so that's sort of what this foundation has become is that it's sort of a way for people to write off, Hey, I did this wonderful deed without how to do research or find charities to actually go approach somehow tax write offs on a big poster underneath the kid in not as inspirational. And I think part of it that frustrated me was that while I understand the messages and it's important to teach people about perseverance or honesty or being truthful. We are a pro perseverance podcast. Yes, for the record. It's important. And I'm not saying it isn't, but isn't shouldn't that be going to like a foundation that's trying to help get people clean water or like there are just so many things out there that are bigger issues in my mind than, you know, I'm really happy. Shack got his degree in perseverance by need more. So this is where I should jump in to say that Philip Anschutz's company, the Anschutz Corporation, did decline our request here in public or I find out for an interview with the 45th richest man in the world himself. And that the executive director of the Anschutz Foundation also didn't respond to messages that we left at a phone number and also an email address that were provided by the Anschutz Corporation. Also, for the record, neither the foundation for a better life nor its president, the guy who runs the nonprofit behind all of those pass it on ads for sportsmanship and love and learning and so forth. Responded to our multiple requests for comment, which also included a detailed list of our questions. But what we found out, thanks to the years of tax returns that Zack Schwartz had pulled, is that these organizations are all in fact intertwined and saving seven figures via tax deductions in the process. In 2021, for instance, the Anschutz Foundation gave a $2.4 million grant for general operating support to the foundation for a better life, whose tax returns that same year listed nearly $2 million in production costs for TV commercials and billboards and other ads under the heading of direct charitable activities. And even more specifically, the promotion of "quality values" for all individuals regardless of their race or religion is a line which may now sound familiar. All of which is to say that the other thing being passed on here beyond these values is tax benefits because yes, also the networks and the billboard companies that broadcast these ads, they also get to deduct the "fair market value" of that ad slot from their taxes. But what all of this paperwork and uncovering all of this accounting really did for us was something even more important for the purposes of this episode. Remember, months earlier, Zack had started this whole quest by calling up an ultimately unhelpful secretary. And now he had these documents, documents with all of these details that wound up pushing Zack in what felt like a new direction. In his search for the whole reason he was here in the first place. Alex. So I've got their tax returns in front of me and it's there are production company names on some of these tax returns that they've filed. And my process was take the name on the tax return, put it into LinkedIn, take the name on the tax return, put it into Instagram. And in doing that, I found two former employees and just DMed both of them and was like, "Hey guys, very odd question here, but I'm trying to find this person. Can you help me?" And one of them got back to me and said, "I'd love to help. I wasn't working on that ad campaign or I wasn't there at that time, but I know someone who can help. They've been there for forever. I'd love to connect to you." Give me your email. So I get in an email thread at them and they sent me right back to the original secretary. So and at that point, I was sort of embarrassed because that was like the secretary definitely thinks I'm well weirdo. So it was very much back to square one, huge bummer. Like really thought I was moving in the right direction. At that particular moment, I was like, I have to go to Twitter and ask them for help for this because I need some sort of closure on this. And part of me now wanting to tweet it was because I was worried someone else would beat me to the story. To be very fair to you, it is absolutely a journalist's last resort when they're beating their head against the wall and are like, fine, what does the internet have for me? It killed me because I was like, all right, I'll wave the white flag. You remember getting that message and being like, how did I not have the story idea already? So I put out there, okay, this is an odd request, but can anyone on here help me find this actor from the famous sportsmanship basketball ad? And 29 minutes later, a motion graphic designer for the Las Vegas Golden Knights replied and said, might be former player now current assistant coach at the University of Denver named BJ Porter. And I mean, like my hands were shaking when I got that one. I go to the gender page and I'm looking into my head, looks a lot like him, you know, 15, 20 years older. And I'm like, that might be him. And then I go and I click on his Twitter and he was following me already. She'd been following me the entire time. The answer was actually following you while you were searching for him. And the best part, I reached out and he he agreed to meet up. By the way, that is Perseverance. This was a thrill, Zach, I don't know. It was kind of like the opposite of an episode of Catfish, I guess on MTV. Um, where it's actually like, hey, this person is who they say they were. But the genuine thrill I felt from putting you and BJ Porter, AKA former assistant men's basketball coach at the University of Denver and current athletic director at a private school in Orange County, California, putting you and BJ Porter slash Alex in the same room at a podcast studio NLA, where you guys finally got to meet each other in person. What was the moment like when he walked in the door? I was so happy to finally get to meet him. And levels are all good on our great. He's 35 now. He's got a bit of scruff. You know, maybe you may not necessarily recognize him initially as Alex, but like got a big bright smile like truly the not one of the nicest people you will ever meet. Oh, I want people to know about me. Um, I'm a chill, simple guy. Yeah, you know, his best friend and best man in his wedding was the guy that I worked with at Arizona State. This is now a little creepy. Zach, did he know you had you ever actually met him before in real life? We hadn't met, but we had been in the same room a couple of times. So he played basketball at Portland with my friend Luke Sigmund. This is of the basketball playing Sigmunds. Yes, Jack Sigmunds son. Amazing. So when Portland would come to LA and play Pepperdine or LMU in their, you know, set schedule, my whole family would go to the game. So I was in the stands. BJ was on this team, and I had no idea. Oh, that was all he throws down the Oop to B.J. Porter. Thanks man. This is, you know, this is in January of '09, so like memories a little foggy. This is before I went to Arizona State, which Lord knows did some damage to my brain. But as for the question of how this basketball player becomes, the basketball player that we became obsessed with, how he becomes Alex, how did B.J. Porter get the word? The first role in the history of sports commercials. He was a child actor. So I actually started. I used to act. You did? Yes. So just basically from the age of around 12 when we moved out to Utah, you know, he talked a bit about kind of having to prioritize hoops over acting, but he has some serious acting credits to his name as a kid. The acting credits that child actor B.J. Porter has to his name include. I actually was involved in another kind of like bad basketball scene on double team. You know what I mean? Let's see. Yeah. So it's an extra. Come on. Bring it in here. Game time. Let's go. Gather around. Teamwork. There was that. There was an episode of Touched by an Angel with Scott Bale. I actually was a child named Jamal, and during that time it was kind of like with police brutality. So what basically we wanted to have happening was, is my mother was at work. I got spooked and I called the police department to come in and they accidentally shoot me. Oh god, I shot a kid. Paul, I shot a kid. Call an ambulance. Go! Happy New Year. New Year's Day. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. Happy New Year. So he's got those roles. He's a senior in high school, and it's pre-basketball season, which is sort of important for eligibility and this is pre-NIL, so you obviously can't be paid once you're in your senior season of the sport you're going to go play in college. My agent reached out, talked to my father and my mother and said, "Hey, we think this would be a good opportunity for BJ. We know this is the last one that he would be able to do." And how vivid is BJ's memory now of that day? His memories of the actual shoot were very clear. It was funny in the whole entire time if you watch it. I'm trying basically not to laugh. All right. I'm looking like I'm trying not to laugh because my cousin, who's actually my teammate at the time, he's the biggest jokester ever. And he's laughing the whole entire time. He's like, "Hey, Alex, Alex is the whole entire time behind the camera a little bit." So it was fun. It was this wild family affair where BJ becomes Alex. BJ's cousin is the teammate that kind of like shoulder checks him. All the players in the huddle basically that had speaking roles are BJ's teammates from high school basketball. It's like, the guy that's like, "It's a championship game." Like, teammate. The guys who very plausibly hated this kid's f***ing guts were actually his real life friends. Friends and teammates and some family. My dad, they wanted him to do the basketball scene. Oh, so you, they wanted your dad in it? Yes, yes. My dad actually is the coach at the other team who does that. Ironically, his dad sort of has this unique role in the whole shoot where apparently the original script was even worse than this. It was actually supposed to be something worse. I can't remember what it was. But my dad had to change it a little bit because he was like, "A basketball player will never do this." And his dad had to kind of go to the producers and be like, "This is how I would try to fix this mess of the thing that you guys have come up with." Wait, it was worse before it became the version we came to know. It was worse and unfortunately, that original is lost to time. So this pretty dramatically changes everything if you were to rewatch it now through the lens of what you've reported for us, the haunting decision that forced BJ Porter into hiding, the acting required when it came to him having to give his confession that in fact, he committed the crime. It's him. It was him the entire time. The ball went out of bounds off of Alex. Does he recall? It's my favorite moment from sitting down with him where he kind of says, "The best part is I didn't even touch the ball. I did not touch the ball." You did not touch the ball. I did not touch the ball. This whole thing is a lie. Let that be a lie soon about the magic of Hollywood. This is all a lie. There were multiple takes to take the hint of using. He didn't even touch the ball. It's funny because if you read the YouTube comments, there are people that actually point this out saying like, "He didn't even touch the ball." Yes. He did not touch the ball. So it does to be very clear about this. The whole point of his ad is that the ball went out of bounds off of Alex. In the commercial, we don't actually see it going off of the real life BJ Porter's hands in the scene. This is the story of his ad in a nutshell. Is that of course it didn't actually happen the way that everybody thought it did. In the foundation for a better life cinematic universe, it's pretty perfect. So how long did it take from production and filming to release? When did Alex actually get to see his work? It took about a year and a half. So he went through his football season, his basketball season, he gets to Portland. The first time BJ actually saw the ad, he was watching Law and Order with his teammates on USA Network as the college athletes do, trying to pass the time, and there it is. My never forget the first time I actually watched it was with my teammates and we were sitting there and they popped up and I was just like, "I kind of wasn't shocked." I was just like, "Oh." And I was like, "Yeah." Like, that's me and they're like, "Wait a minute, that is you, right?" And I was like, "Yeah." And it was just kind of one of those things where he just kind of laughed. We just laughed it off. It wasn't as big of a deal at that time because it was just like, "Okay, this was just something that was just getting started." So somebody who watched a lot of Law and Order in College with his roommates, did he? The idea that you'd be watching an episode and be in a commercial that would then render you the victim in an internet murder mystery, basically, where you have to go into hiding as a result. You truly cannot script like this, Zach. No, no. And like, you'd be so cool to get to be in an ad in college and be like, "Guys, that's me." Like, the crux of this ad is so tough for him, you know, and like, that I can't imagine. Yes. In the sports criminal justice system, the people are represented by two separate equally important groups, the memes, and the people who dunk on them. So just to set us in an internet time in the history of our Cultures Act, this is 08, BJ Porter is trying to be a real life actual college basketball player, and this commercial comes on, and now we're beginning to see the spread, right? I think he probably got his first inkling of it, Portland goes to play at Gonzaga. You know, I mentioned being a basketball sickle myself. There are plenty in the kennel at Gonzaga games, like those in the best way. Like those die hard college basketball fans. And one of the kids in the stands yells, you look like the sportsmanship kid, and if you know about Gonzaga when you go there, especially during that time, it's like that's one kennel craziness, that's when they had the zombie nation right before you play, and like we're right there warming up, and we're like, "All right, really good at that time too," and it's like, "Hey, you look like the sportsmanship kid." Did your heart sink? That kind of did. Because me and my other teammate, Jason Hannibal, kind of like laughed, and Jason's kind of like, he would be like, "Yeah, but I was like, you better not." You know. So he kind of. So as this is now being noticed in specific instances by these college kids who are also presumably watching law and order with their friends in their dorm, when did it feel like virality had come to pass? So he ended up transferring to Weber State, okay? You know, he gets there around 2010. Yes, the home of Damien Lillard. And there were teammates. Like, right, there were teammates at Weber Together, and this is sort of where it starts to. Like, Twitter introduces video, and that's kind of where the problems start to arise for our good friend B.J. here. And I just never forget. I walked into the locker room one time with my teammate, and he's just dying left, and he's like, "Man, they're roasting you. They're going after you." And I was just like, "What's going after me?" And he showed me the video of it, and all the comments, and I was like, "Wow, like, this is really his kind of like, starting to take a turn a little bit." Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If this was real, he'd be benched for the season. This is why bullying exists. Yeah, I just looked up the comments today, and someone wrote, "Sounds like something Drake would do." Damn. "Getting roasted. I'm going to eternity." Which is all to say. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. that you found BJ Porter, the guy who played Alex, who played at Weber State alongside Damien Lillard, and one of the people who remembers vividly, this very true fact pattern happens to be Dame Lillard who we sent a correspondent to interview in Viabit. One day we had a class and we was all sitting in the dorms, and I don't remember exactly how the conversation came up, but it came up, we was like, you know, you could present him in this commercial. You know, when you said the ball went on viewing and came up, and we stopped calling him BJ and we started calling him Bobby, because it was like, man, he was snitch, you know, like viewing that commercial, and it was, it was a joke from there. We got the vibe while talking to Dame that he didn't co-sign Alex's code of honor. I'd never been in that situation, but it came down to it, I'm cheap, I'm not, that ain't gonna be a moment where I show support to him. And I think that's why he got clowned a lot for it, even to this day when a commercial come on and tell him, like, my teammates here, like, and I play with him in college, you know, so it's like a, that's a forever joke. When we first started getting on him about it, he was like, man, I know, like, almost like he looked back at it like, man, I would have known it would have turned into this, I probably wouldn't have did it like that type of vibe. Oh my God, it's, and that's so fun about this ad is that, like, we as people who consume basketball, like, know this ad, but the people that are like the greatest basketball players playing right now also know this ad. Like, yeah, that's how in gross in the basketball culture, it is doing better promotion than Philip and shoots could ever have dreamed of. And it's, but the whole thing, I mean, truly, like, as BJ Porter is making his way through college and his basketball journey, as again, he's trying to be a real player. How did he deal with this? How did he deal with the attention that was already obvious to him? He's a very good basketball player. And I think that's the part that's like, that's what's funny with all this is these people like, I give out buckets, I cook out in BJ sitting there like, what would you say to any of those people? Please come try. He was a very good shooter, very good player, you know, plays it as easy as a specific after his time with Damon at Weber can even while there, you know, the coach in film would put his, you know, picture up on the on the projector and say, you know, nice going Alex and things like that, the ad hung with him. He told me a story when we sat down that he gets engaged and he's at Disneyland and at some point, they were at ESPN zone with his family and they look up and there's the ad all these years later playing on the TV at ESPN zone, you try to start a family and meanwhile Alex is still watching him. Even that date, the ride operator sneaks up to him and whispers, hey, I touched, I was like, what do you mean? I kind of looked at him and he goes, he goes, I touched the ball coach, haha, haha, and I was just like, all right, you're, you're a funny guy. At a certain point, it must be the case that his own kids, now that he's like a grown man, also are pointing this out to him. His kids have seen the ad, the friend that I know that's their godfather news, a coach in college actually right now showed them the ad took out a son and said, hey, you gotta see what your dad did. When we show you this thing, your dad was a star and played it for him. Some of my daughter at a home attack time is like, daddy, you're an commercial, daddy, you touched the ball, daddy. And my son's like, daddy, like, why did he call you Alex? All wishes to say that he could not escape this at home at the happiest place on earth. Hahaha. In any locker rooms on the internet, yeah, is enough to make someone become a recluse truly. He deactivated his accounts on all social media at one point because he went into coaching. That's such a necessary tool for recruiting that his coach at Denver was like, hey, you have to reactivate your social accounts like reach out to kids, right? So he kind of got forced back into this place where it's constantly being brought up, right? Which brings him back to you following you. And just to complete the circle here, like the beautiful part of this story to me, this symmetrical part of the story is that BJ Porter became a real life f***ing basketball coach. Yeah. He became the other person in the commercial at Hansom. And I guess my question near the end here is how does coach BJ Porter, how did he view Alex? How would he handle a kid who did what he himself did in this ad that he can never escape? He, you know, grinning through a grin said to me, you know, thank you for your honesty. And there's a reason why they have risks and risks of due to their job. So whatever the risk, let them just let them decide. It's like such a perfect sort of summary on the whole ad and kind of his outlook on life in general. Yes. I asked him like, hey, if you were going against Alex, what would the scouting report be? Yeah, what's Alex's got your physical knock him around, he'll lose you the game. What I feel like I found out, Zach, what I found out thanks to your reporting today is what actual sportsmanship in the age of the internet actually looks like, which is far more vivid now, thanks to BJ Porter, the embodiment of that principle online, then it was in the ad he started that literally had the word sportsmanship in big letters, trying to drill into us, you know, values.com. Totally. I mean, his whole outlook on it, even asking him like, would you, do you regret doing like, if you could go back in time, would you still do the ad and he's like, yeah, it's a part of who I am. Yeah. I'm Alex, you know, I got all three. He's all three. He's all three. He's all three. He's all three too. It was very special. I have him sitting across the table for me and leaning to my phone and say, I am Alex. It's so rare to have a story about a child star who gets eaten by Twitter and comes out on the other side being like, I think I'm better for this. Totally. He's a very profound and awesome dude. I was very glad to have gotten to know him and find him. Zack Schwartz, you're now free from a journalistic prison of your own devising and all I could do now is shoulder check you off of my show and tell you earnestly, nice going, Zack. Really nice going. It was an honor. Thank you. This has been Pablo Tore finds out a metal arc media production and I'll talk to you next time.