The Lunch Bucket Brigade (with special guests!)

Transcript

Mark: This week on the Nuggets Pod, the nuggets are going streaking. Well, we're back.

Jenny: It's been a good week.

Mark: It has.

Jenny: We also had some special guests join us just before this.

Mark: First time.

Jenny: We had the honor of inviting, welcoming Susan Hagar and Jay Clark to come chat with us. They were nuggets staff, Susan as a marketing professional and Jay as like a media relations person for the nuggets. During years when we were young kids, like the late 70s into the early 90s, I think for both of them. Um, and they came to tell us about the lunch bucket brigade poster Yes, which we talked about last situation Yeah, I think jay maybe started in the 80s.

Mark: He said working for the team But yeah, like between the two of them it was like late 70s through that 94 season that we also talked about when The Nuggets won game six at home against the Jazz. Yep. Yeah. And come to find out, Susan is the brainchild behind these incredible team posters that the Nuggets used to do.

Jenny: Yeah. It was a lot of fun to chat with the two of them. I put my journalism skills to work and tracked her down and she was so generous and kind to rope Jay in to come and chat with us. And man, we just got to hear some really fun stories.

Mark: They have the best stories. It was awesome. Yeah, could have sat there and just listened to them talk about the 70s and 80s and early 90s nuggets for hours.

Jenny: Yeah, yeah.

Mark: So thanks so much to Susan and Jay for coming by. Yep. It was a great time.

Jenny: Yeah.

Susan Hagar: Here's our chat with them. Hope you guys enjoy it.

Jenny: Are we good? Good to go? Okay. How would you like for us to introduce you? Would you like to introduce yourselves?

Jay Clark: Oh, geez.

Jenny: Sure. That's fine. You want to go first?

Susan Hagar: I'm Susan Hagar. I worked for the Denver Nuggets from 1978 until 92. And then stayed on a couple of years after that doing some projects, consulting kind of projects.

Jay Clark: And I'm Jay Clark. I grew up in Denver and dreamed of playing for the Denver Rockets as a kid. Didn't have the game, obviously, but was fortunate enough to join the Nuggets in 1987 and was with the team through 1994, working in media relations.

Susan Hagar: So you both were media relations? I was more on the marketing side, actually. OK. OK, yeah.

Jenny: That's quite the tenure.

Jay Clark: It was a lot of fun. Great job when you're young and can spend 16 hours a day at the arena if you want to be anywhere else. So it was great.

Susan Hagar: Exactly.

Jenny: That's awesome. Well, we invited you here in part to tell us about the specific lunch bucket brigade set up. And I'm assuming you have questions that you came up with about that poster about

Mark: Yeah, I do have questions about that poster. I have I was gonna ask Jay. You said you grew up in Denver. I did.

Susan Hagar: Same.

Mark: Where did you guys go?

Susan Hagar: From Evergreen.

Mark: Okay, cool. And then did you go to high school? I went to Sherry Creek. Okay, we went to Smokey Hill. Nice. Oh yeah. Yep. So, I mean, I feel similar. Like I played basketball growing up. Dreamed of playing in the NBA one day But my game was too much hustle Turns out we really can't jump So I'm glad that we have that kinship though like what do you guys remember about the city at the time that you were working for the Nuggets and like how much it's changed since then. We grew up in the suburbs and didn't go to the city a ton, but I know it has changed a lot. What do you guys remember from back then?

Susan Hagar: Gosh, completely different. Completely different in every way. We could just start with the nightmare that is I-25. It was really a small city, I think is how we would could accurately describe it. And yeah, I mean, I can't even begin to quantify the changes since then.

Jay Clark: Yeah, I mean, you think back to when both and Susan and I were with the Nuggets, the Nuggets and the Broncos were the only teams in town. I mean, it was pre-Rockies, pre-Avalanche, and pre-Coors Field. I mean, a lot of the things that are really iconic now about Timber weren't here then, not to age ourselves. But, you know, when I think of, you think of the 16th Street Mall and that transformation in, you know, when I grew up, we used to go to games at the Auditorium Arena, which is now the DCPA. That's where the Timber Rockets played. I didn't know that. Was the auditorium arena. It was about a 5,000 seat arena down in the middle of downtown Denver where the DCPA is now. That's where my old man used to drag me down to ABA games with the red, white, and blue ball and everything else. So, you know, I remember, and Susan I'm sure does too, very distinctly when the McNichols Arena opened. which was all part of Denver trying to get the Winter Olympics. That was that was one of the big catalysts of building McNichols Arena and you know then to end up working in McNichols Arena as a Denver kid and seeing all this transformation was just it was a dream come true for me.

Mark: Was that the Winter Olympics? I remember my our mom talking about like Was it the governor at the time who decided that Denver should host?

Jay Clark: Yeah, Denver was actually awarded the Winter Olympics and the governor turned it down.

Susan Hagar: Was that Governor Lamb? Lamb, that's right.

Jay Clark: So Denver's historic in that it's the only city that's ever turned down an Olympic bed. Oh wow. That was awarded. Unimaginable. But part of it was, you know, building all the facilities you need to do that. And McNichols was part of that. Yeah.

Jenny: Why did he turn it down? Do we know?

Jay Clark: They just didn't like the economic impact. They thought it would have an adverse economic impact with traffic and all the infrastructure they had to deal with. They said a lot of environmental issues as well. A lot of environmental issues and, you know, getting people up to I-70 and all the infrastructure it would take. They didn't think it was worth the investment. Got it. In 1974 or five, whenever that was, probably wasn't wrong. Yeah. But still.

Jenny: Wow. What a title for us to hold this city. I know.

Mark: Hard to imagine anymore with like the stories you hear about like backroom dealings and like bribes that cities and countries pay to host an Olympics or World Cup that anybody would ever turn it down.

Jenny: Yeah. It's different.

Mark: time, I guess. What do you guys remember about how like the nuggets evolved or like grew as the city of Denver was growing too?

Susan Hagar: Oh, we were just reminiscing. So when I started in 78, I think our staff, I'm going to say maybe 15 people. Yeah. You're looking, I'm just, yeah.

Mark: That's like the whole support staff for the whole organization. Everything.

Susan Hagar: Man. Wow. Yeah. And so, you know, you had your job, but literally we all did a little bit of everything. So as the city grew, the team evolved, the league was changing, but it was very small. It was very family-like. It was a job, certainly, but as much of a job, it was really, it was your way of life. We did everything together. Everything together. You know, socially, if we had some team event we had to do, we were at the arena the vast majority of the time. and day off and night off, a weekend off rarely, we all found each other, you know, we were all together anyway. It was a very different kind of a, it was like a small business almost, which I know sounds kind of odd thinking of what it has become, but it gave us, it was a lot of fun for one, it was a lot of work also, but a great deal of fun and we had, just direct, unlimited access to the team, which is why we were able to pull off things like the lunch bucket brigade or some other, yeah, some other shenanigans that we did. I'm curious, how many women were part of that staff of 15? I worked for one, Paula Hanson, who went on to be an executive at the NBA and the WNBA. Let's see, our receptionist?

Jay Clark: Yeah.

Susan Hagar: I mean, not many. Okay. Not many. Cool. Yeah. Well, we're glad to have you here today. Thank you.

Mark: History worker. When you think back to like, okay, you said it's a job and you like have your job that you were hired to do, but like what do you remember as some of the random things that you ended up just having to do because there were only 15 of you?

Susan Hagar: Oh, I'll give you an example. That is a burned end of my brain. So, ticketing. Okay, ticketing paper tickets. They were printed by a company who had some sort of computer. I'm tweaking my fingers. You know, based on the layout of the arena and the seats and the rows and the sections and whatnot. But those tickets came to us twice a year for the season and then for playoffs in boxes. And they had to be manually split up, checked, assembled, per seat and then assembled per whoever owned them as season tickets versus the rest of the stock which went into the ticket office for individual games. So there was a week in the, you know, early fall And then another, I had a playoff time where everyone, literally everyone, with the exception of Carl Shear probably, was in the conference room, in this conference room in McNichols Arena, doing this manual, mind-numbing, putting tickets together. And people were always really surprised about that, thinking that, you know, they just came. And then after that, then we would have A week or so of people coming to get the tickets and so we all staff that So, you know, you're trying to do your job whatever that may have been and you're manning a table for Joe season ticket holder to pop in and get his tickets and you know, so that's that's the one thing that is You're nodding painfully.

Jay Clark: You know, if it's a playoff game and you had to put a towel on 17,000 seats, everybody pitched in to do that kind of stuff. So, yeah, it was wherever you needed.

Mark: Yeah, I knew that cast a thousand.

Jay Clark: Yeah, yeah It comes just for the day That's these are the things we don't think about well, it's also interesting to think back, you know I'm standing on Susan shoulders a little bit because she was really in you know transitioning from the late 70s into the early 80s, you know, I think the league made a big step thing because you think of and I think it was The last NBA finals of the 70s leading into the 80s was on tape delay. It wasn't even broadcast live.

Mark: Yeah, that's amazing.

Jay Clark: Because that was kind of the state of the NBA. So thanks to a lot of creative folks like Susan and Carl Sheer and everything else, they were able to raise the NBA, start elevating the NBA. And a real turning point, I don't think that many people would argue, for the Nuggets and for the NBA itself was the 1984 All-Star game that Denver hosted here. This was before my time. Susan was in the middle of that. But that was really almost a little bit of an inflection point for the league, certainly for the Nuggets.

Susan Hagar: Well, that was the first year we did the slam dunk contest, which was an ABA holdover. and the old timers game, which we still got away with calling them old timers, which now that's very politically incorrect. They're legends, right? Right.

Jenny: Yeah. Wow. Legends.

Susan Hagar: Yeah. So that was the first year that the All-Star game became an event.

Jay Clark: Became a weekend.

Susan Hagar: Became a whole series of madness.

Jay Clark: So it became a blueprint for the madness you see today around the All-Star game. And that was a turning point. Good point. That really was a Denver base in Denver. Some of the creative stuff you know Susan's one of the most creative people that I've worked with and some of that creative energy that went into events like that. Yeah, you know that that elevated and like I say was kind of an inflection point for The nuggets for sure and the team so that really I think solidified the team moving forward that we were you know this is a real legit now thing major league enterprise so by the time I joined the team in eighty seven. You know, maybe it certainly wasn't what it is today, the NBA and the Nuggets, but it was still a lot bigger of a deal than it was before 1984.

Mark: Was the All-Star game still during the Saint, like in February, like it is now? Yeah. What do you remember about like brainstorming, coming up with ideas, your role in making it kind of like that landmark.

Susan Hagar: We all to go back to that how we all did everything because we were still pretty small then probably more than 15 people but pretty small. We had these committees which was funny because it was like me. Two people. We called them our itty bitty committees and we were committees and so I was entertainment. I remember Carl Scheer's assistant was the hotel She had to go and make deals with the hotels in the city to do the big room blocks and prepare. Somebody was working with the city. We had someone on the team side to deal with the players. I was entertainment, so what do I remember? We had the Temptations. sang the National Anthem. The Temptations and the Four Tops did a show for us Friday night, I think, at the old turn of the century, if you remember now. Yeah, down south.

Mark: That was the first concert I think we ever went to was the Four Tops and the Temptations at Fiddler's Green.

Susan Hagar: One of the Temptations, one of the originals, I believe, was David English who was Alex English's cousin. That was kind of fun. So they did that. I remember sitting on the floor for the Slam Dunk contest, watching Julia's survey. That is kind of blazed into my brain.

Jenny: Was the dunk contest like your idea? No, no, no, no.

Susan Hagar: I just want to clarify, if it was, we need to make sure we give credit for where it's due. Goodness, no.

Mark: So they had done that in the ABA?

Susan Hagar: In the ABA. So it was Carl Shearer bringing it. over from the from the ABA And there were a lot of NBA purists who thought he was nuts frankly We didn't you know didn't want to be bothered with that that sort of thing But it was a huge hit and don't forget the three-point shot is an ABA holdover to that was originally Yeah, so that's what I remember I remember we all wore tuxedos to the game and Yeah. That's funny things pop into my head. I still, I still have my All-Star ring. They gave me an All-Star ring, which was cool.

Mark: Yeah. That was February of 84. Correct. And then the Nuggets played the Lakers in the Western Conference finals the next spring. Okay. And I remember Denver threw a parade for the Nuggets after they lost to the Linger. Consolation parade. Cool. I know like growing up now, I think of Denver as like a really great sports town, but like a Broncos town first. And it surprised me to find out there was that much support for the Nuggets at the time. That is surprising. But do you think that was pretty representative of how the city felt or was that more of like, oh my gosh, I can't believe they actually had such a good season?

Susan Hagar: Maybe more of that. I don't remember a lot about that parade, to be honest.

Jay Clark: And let's not kid ourselves, Denver is and has always been a Broncos town. I mean, that's just the way it is. And we always knew that. I don't remember having an attitude that we're the little brother. We were just the other major league team. And it just was. It's just a Broncos town. That's always how it was. But, you know, we always had, at least I did, and I'm sure you did too, a very cordial working relationship with the workouts and we would mix and match with different ideas. But yeah, I mean, you think of Denver back then with just the two sports teams. You know, we weren't quite the sports city that we are now. Yeah, I remember, I think it was 98 when the Avalanche, or right after the Avalanche won the Stanley Cup, and the Broncos won their first Super Bowl, and we had the Rockies were getting more competitive. Sporting news, which may it rest in peace, Denver is the number one sports city in the country. Wow. And it wasn't like that in the 80s. No, but at that time, after we had all four teams and the Super Bowl champs, Stanley Cup champ. Yeah. And I see you're wearing your Nicola sweatshirt, your t-shirt. Susan probably shares this. In my lifetime, I never thought we'd see the Nuggets win the championship.

Mark: I didn't either. Oh my gosh. It's still surreal to think about it. That actually happened.

Jay Clark: Because back when we had some really good teams in 1985, 1988, 1988, we beat the Lakers three out of four times. We were on a beeline to the finals, and Alex and Fatkitter. Anyways, there was always somebody ahead of us. Then the roster turned over. We get Matumbo and Lefonzo Ellis, and we're really good again. It's the Chicago Bulls. Hype the Michaels. There was always somebody in front of us. Then it's Steph Curry. For the Nuggets to ever win the championship, I never thought would happen in their lifetime.

Susan Hagar: It was great fun.

Jay Clark: So that was just so great. Yes, my gosh.

Mark: Yeah, the fact that the best player in the world plays in Denver. It's just so great. Seems like he will never leave. Yeah, it's like I have to pinch myself every day to not take that for granted. Because growing up here, it was not that way ever.

Jay Clark: It was that way once upon a time. When in 1976, the Nuggets signed David Thompson. The NBA wanted David Thompson, so did the ABA. There were still two separate leagues. Carl Shear pulled his magic and got David Thompson here. David was the best player on the planet. That's true.

Susan Hagar: And I remember. Unfortunately, I had some personal problems.

Jay Clark: But I remember going to games. First, my old man was so into it. First, we could not believe David Thompson was coming to Denver. Just won the NCAA championship, beat UCLA. They've ended UCLA streak of 12 NCAA championships in a row, because David Thompson was unbelievable. He's coming to Denver. So we have had the best player in the world here before. But again, there was always somebody blocking us, Dr. Jay. I remember.

Susan Hagar: Anyways. Did they re-sign him? Because I can remember, and it had to be after 70, or it might have been 78, actually. I remember being in the press room that spring, when he signed his shoppingly high $800,000 a year contract, which at the time was his largest contract. Yeah. So I think that was that was a resign or something or renegotiation extension. And I apologize. I got a soundtrack.

Jay Clark: Nicole is the best player. And obviously the game is elevated and it's such an international game now. But you know, we have had the best player in the world and we've had some really good teams.

Mark: to watch him actually go to a game and see him in his prime. Because I've seen highlights. They're kind of fewer and farther between than highlights now. But I just remember everybody saying he was Michael Jordan before Michael Jordan. So thinking about that, having the Michael Jordan of his time playing in Denver.

Jay Clark: It was pretty cool.

Mark: I bet. Yeah. And then didn't he like tear up his knee in one of the old-timer games at an All-Star game? I don't remember that.

Jay Clark: Yeah, it was in Orlando. Okay. And I was with the team then and I was the team representative at the All-Star game. And the old timers, the legends game was getting ready to start. Me and my friend from the New York Knicks run over to the side press tent to grab some stuff. We're coming back, and as we're coming back, they're wheeling David out on a carnival.

Mark: It's like, what happened? First minute, he blew his knee out. I think it might have been. I think it might have been. I remember that being a staple of the All-Star game when I was a kid. And then I remember watching as he got hurt.

Susan Hagar: As they're older, they're still great athletes, obviously very competitive, a lot of pride, so you don't put people like that on the court and tell them to hold back.

Jay Clark: And my last story, Susan was, you worked with David for years. I still can't call him, he's still DT to me. And, you know, I worked with the team and DT would come in for different functions or whatever. He's still made me feel like I was a 12-year-old kid.

Mark: That's David Thompson.

Susan Hagar: My god, it's David Thompson. He's right there. He's one of the sweetest guys. And one of the sweetest guys.

Jay Clark: I bet I've had him sign 5,000 things.

Susan Hagar: Just because it's David Thompson.

Mark: You're like telling your kids, and they're like that.

Jay Clark: I don't know who that is.

Susan Hagar: It's David Thompson.

Jay Clark: He's right there. So he would come over and shake my head, and I'd freeze. Oh my god.

Mark: I feel like if I saw Alex English or Fat Lever, I would feel the same way like I was 10 years old. Posters. Yes. We've been leading up to the posters. What are your memories? We can talk more generally about the series of posters that you guys did because I know the lunch bucket brigade wasn't the only one. I would love to talk about that one specifically too, but I guess just what are your memories of like how the idea for the team posters that weren't just like the generic everybody in their uniform at half court of the arena, like how did that come about?

Susan Hagar: I have been trying to remember the moment, a moment. And I really don't. I think the first one we did, help me with the years, Jay, was we called it off and running. And we went to Centennial Racetrack. OK. And put the guys actually in the starting, whatever they call that, of course. The starting gate. The starting gate.

Jay Clark: OK. With the doors open.

Susan Hagar: The doors were open. They were in there. I see them in blue sweats. And that was the first one. I have to believe that that was Paula Hanson's idea. She was that first year, I don't think I became marketing director and probably the year after that she was, when she became assistant general manager. So I think that was Paula's idea and it, I mean brilliant because that was, you know, they were running. So it was a great takeoff on the style play that was happening. It was something a little different. At the same time that we were starting to toy with this, I remember Nike was really coming on as this marketing powerhouse and they did some really cool posters of their guys that they had signed as Nike athletes. I remember one I think it was their players, their signed players who were all stars in whatever year this was. And they put them in judges robes and they were the Supreme Court.

Mark: Do you remember that?

Susan Hagar: And they just had this fabulous creative team and access to these guys and they were doing some great work and we kind of, you know, I think that was part of it. It's just a thing then to find these themes and do something different. So the players in a different light. Unfortunately, Jay and I have been recalling is, you know, we had the support of, you know, coaches, chopper, nothing happened without a chopper.

Jenny: Okay.

Susan Hagar: And then the leaders of the team, you know, when, when Dan Issell says, yeah, we're going to do this or Alex English is on board. It changed everything. So it became, Kind of an annual thing that everybody was involved in to one degree or another. And I remember kicking around ideas like the first half of the season, we'd kind of see where we were going, what they were all about. And by, you know, by holiday time, we'd land it because then we would take the picture right after the trade deadline.

Mark: Okay.

Susan Hagar: Try and extend that shelf life a little bit. So everybody got on, you know, the themes, some were like super obvious, like lunch bucket for cake. Some were a little more, you know, just what would be fun. The hardest part, I think, if there was a hard part, was when we got more into the costuming and you're trying to find props and things that would fit some of the guys. And it wasn't, I wouldn't say hard, it was a challenge, it was fun. So yeah, we had, I think there were probably,

Jay Clark: I don't know we pulled it off for maybe 10 years or so yeah and again going back to what we were saying before it was such a cool way to bring an attention to the team you know a competitive market where we were always the younger the younger brother yeah the little brother to do something cool that would make you stand out a little more that's they were just they were such they were so brilliant such a brilliant idea and this was not like a

Mark: standard like every NBA team. We were the only one. We were pretty much the only one. This was us. Incredible.

Susan Hagar: We did some other themed posters too. I was thinking that weren't team posters. We were just remembering, do you remember Michael Adams?

Mark: Three-pointer. Three-pointer.

Susan Hagar: And we dressed him up like a cowboy and he was the long ranger. Someone still has that Stetson that he wore in there.

Mark: Do you think, one of the, I think I have like a very vague memory of that long ranger poster, but it sparked, I remember when the Broncos had the three Amigos, do you think they borrowed from you guys with that idea in any way? That just seems like- I'm not gonna say that, I don't know. Okay, I'll say it, I think the Broncos stole that idea.

Susan Hagar: I think it was, you know, the players, I mean, we really did have fun with those.

Jay Clark: We did. And, you know, the other thing that I want to make clear is that, you know, Susan was always the one that came up with the idea. And it was always a lot of pressure.

Susan Hagar: There was some pressure. Cause it's like, okay, cool.

Jay Clark: You did the lunch break brigade down. That was cool. Now what are you going to do this year? So they come up with that every year. Cause none of us can say, oh yeah, we thought of let's, let's do one at the firehouse and dress them.

Jenny: Right.

Jay Clark: No, it was Susan. But that was tremendous pressure that you had to put up with.

Mark: Did you feel like the double edged sword?

Susan Hagar: Kind of. I mean, you'd kind of feel like, you know, have great idea. I do have my favorites and then it's like, Oh God, what are we going to do next year? But it wasn't, it wasn't like some unbearable pressure. It was really, it was a very fun aspect of my job area.

Jenny: She was a creative professional.

Susan Hagar: She just handled ideas just for my daughter.

Mark: No, no, no, no, no.

Susan Hagar: But so my favorites, I'm thinking High Plains Dribblers. Great one. Where we actually, we put the team on a bus and went to Central City to the old Gilded Garter.

Mark: Wow, I don't think I've seen that one. Oh, Jay's got a photo. That's your favorite?

Susan Hagar: I think so, one of them. The firehouse, I love the firehouse. I'll fire it up. I remember Danny Shays brought his dalmatian. Dalmatian, yeah. Murray. Oh, like his personal pet. That's fun. And then the other one, probably in the top three, is Smooth Operators. And they were doctors, which is a frightening thought. And we took over an OR at Rose. In an actual OR? Yeah.

Jenny: At which hospital?

Susan Hagar: Rose. That is amazing. Yeah, we were up at Rose. That was really fun. They were all in scrubs and oh wow Yeah, I think you can scroll that was in 1990.

Mark: Have you ever seen this one? No Do you own these still Jay?

Jay Clark: They existed a mutual friend of ours.

Susan Hagar: Okay, okay They passed on both Susan.

Jay Clark: I got sick of moving them around I have a few of them at home. Do you have any specific memories?

Mark: I know this is so long ago. And I'm not saying that to make it sound like anybody's old design. It is what it is. Do you have specific memories? lunch bucket brigade, like pulling costumes, like having them stand in certain places.

Susan Hagar: That one was not too difficult to costume because it was like, where are your jeans? Yeah, we got some, you know, those sleeveless tanks and bandanas and that one was not a costuming challenge. Cowboys, I remember we had to order scrubs. for the operators ahead of time, because most doctors aren't sick seven or. Yeah, the Firehouse, those people were really great with us.

Jay Clark: The thing I remember most, and again, I was only involved with, I think, the last four, was how much fun the players had. Really? Yeah, they were all just into it. That's awesome. I remember the Firehouse one. We had our three guards, Mike Evans and Michael Adams and Fat Lever, in the corner of the picture. And they wanted to time it perfectly so that they would light a match right as the guy was shooting the picture. So by the end of this photo shoot, we have got a pile of matchsticks on the floor, in the firehouse, and I'm going great. Nuggets burned down in the firehouse museum. But they had so much fun with it. And that's, again, I think it goes back to this close knit that we had. Not that they don't have it as much today. I don't think they do quite as much.

Susan Hagar: Well, I don't think the staff is involved in it.

Jay Clark: But everybody just had, it was just a joyful day for everyone.

Susan Hagar: became a photo stylist for a couple hours. They all had ideas. When we did the High Plains Dribblers, and we're in this old saloon, there's cards on the table.

Jay Clark: And they're playing? They're playing, of course.

Jenny: Here's a chopper. I'm looking at a photo right now. They're cutting an incision into a basketball. Oh my gosh, amazing. There's a stethoscope. Sorry.

Susan Hagar: What I told Jay, the reason I remember that one is 1990. That was March of 1990. I was quite pregnant with my oldest. Oh, wow. And I have a Polaroid test. You have your test shots. I have a Polaroid where I'm on the table. And my belly is a basketball. Yeah, which will not be shared. Amazing. But anyway. You were saying about the card. Oh, choppers. So anyway, yeah, we're at the Gilded Garter and they're all dressed and there's a card game they're playing and Chop picks up a deck and picks up an ace and shoves it in his sleeve. I was like, okay.

Mark: I could not have thought of anything more brilliant than that.

Susan Hagar: So they all had their own ideas and things to contribute.

Mark: Wardrobe for that one in particular is like, Very impressive. Yeah, that one that took some like real saloon.

Jenny: I took some shopping a lot of thrift stores and You should look at all of them before it's good. Yeah, there's some fun ones great memories How did it I'm curious how it ended are you ready to do you have more questions about I'm just curious at what what happened to make it to make it end, and if you're not interested in talking about that publicly, it's okay.

Jay Clark: No, I think, you know, as the team evolved and we got new ownership and new management and our whole entire roster pretty much turned over front office wise and team wise with a few exceptions like myself and Susan. New regimes just, you know, we're focused on some different things and the marketing changed. I would say a little bit of how we marketed the team changed. So it just got to the point where we did the last one and The players weren't quite as into it because they didn't have the history with it. The new management really didn't have that kind of history and weren't really interested in continuing it from that standpoint. Because again, I think the league was growing, things were just getting bigger. I don't think we needed that. Big pop of marketing differentiation. Yeah, so just kind of this is kind of fizzle away Which is really sad if you have you can't force it into it like that. It seems like the kind of thing that yeah Yeah, you know, I think the last one we did you draw you arrange for us to go to one of the brokerage stock brokerages. Yeah, we were investing in the future because again, we enrolled the entire roster from one year to the next almost and had a new coach and Doug was not here anymore. It was the last one and and you know, you're dragging these players in there and they're going well, why aren't we in our uniforms?

Jenny: Because you get to dress like a stockbroker. It should be fun.

Jay Clark: It just wasn't a thing anymore. That makes sense. I mean, because we did have a really great continuity for all those years. And when I say there was pressure on Susan, I say it jokingly. But all the players would go, what are we going to do this year? What's it going to be because they because you know they were all into it so it just you know things change and things evolve and you know Susan and moved on to a different phase of her life so when when she left the idea kind of walked out the door with her as well so did that coincide with like the uniform rebrand like

Mark: Not quite.

Jay Clark: A couple years after that we did the logo and the uni rebrand. We were still in the Creole list for a while.

Susan Hagar: That's a story. I remember the contest we had to design that skyline thing.

Mark: like 80s skyline that is i know i'm biased because i'm a denver you love it kid yes i think it's one of the best uniforms in any sport across like my life i just love it so much you know at the time i mean it was a it was a contest it was a promotion and a young artist in town

Susan Hagar: designed it and, you know, probably has kicked himself a thousand times since thinking about, you know, we gave him a prize of some sort. He got some tickets to a game. I think he got season tickets. Anyway, but the league was not a fan at the time.

Jay Clark: So many colors. Trying to reproduce that on a shirt or a...

Susan Hagar: Right, and you're thinking back on time where we actually went on a printing press. It was years, decades before digital printing. So it was expensive to reproduce. So yeah, we were not, we were not thought of highly for that one for a couple of years. Where is that artist now? Do you know? No idea. Okay.

Mark: He may not have won a huge prize or gotten a lot of money, but to be the person to be able to claim it off. Totally.

Susan Hagar: That's his claim to fame. He should be retired on a sailboat somewhere for what he actually did.

Mark: Who was the most photogenic nugget? Oh.

Jay Clark: Alexander the Great.

Susan Hagar: T.R.

Jay Clark: T.R. Dunn is always a looker. And I will digress. My mother, may she rest in peace, loved T.R. Dunn. And I think it might have even been Susan, but one game we get her a courtside seat. And there's an out-of-bounds play, and T.R. Dunn comes to throw the ball in right in front of my mother. And in my entire life, it's the only time I've seen her swoon. I thought she was going to faint. Yes, I thought she was going to faint. T.R. was built like a Greek god. T.R. was his best friend. I think he still is.

Susan Hagar: He was just ripped. He was just ripped.

Jay Clark: But Alexander the Great was just always so regal.

Susan Hagar: He was. He was always very stylish. And then there was Kiki, who was not stylish. He was the most casual He had a sweater. Do you remember the sweater? The guys called it the all-purpose sweater. It's a sport coat. No, it's a smoking jacket. No, it's a warm-up jacket because he wore that thing everywhere.

Mark: Any occasion.

Susan Hagar: Yeah.

Mark: I remember in the lunch bucket brigade poster, Calvin Nat is kind of in the middle, just like puffing his chest out, small tank top, that I thought like that just stands out in my mind. Another specimen. Yeah, Calvin was a specimen.

Susan Hagar: Yeah, Calvin was an enforcer for sure.

Mark: Big guy.

Jay Clark: So my first year with the team, sorry to digress again, but I love telling the story. My first year with the team, 87-88, we were really good. 154 games, went on an incredible run second half of the season. We're the number two seed. Lakers were number one. We beat them three out of four times in the year. But the last game of the season, it came down to us and Dallas who was going to win the division. We win, so we're in the locker room. You know, doing the celebration and Calvin grabs me in a headlock and he's flipping me around like I'm a rag doll. And he's not even, he's not even trying. I'm just being flung about. And I finally have to kind of tap out, because I thought he was going to snap my head right off. But he was such a big, strong, gentle bear guy.

Susan Hagar: Yeah, real teddy bear at heart.

Jay Clark: Could be mean and nasty on court and had the worst snarl ever. But yeah, he was something.

Susan Hagar: My now husband of almost 38 years tells a story meeting him. When we were just dating and and Calvin, you know, it was just joking around but he kind of he stood up and my husband's not a small guy he's tall but Calvin kind of stood up in his biggest way possible and Enveloped his hand to take it to shake his hand sees it just made him feel like a child is like this giant beast of a strong hand comes around him and

Jay Clark: And I loved your question earlier about being a woman working in sports because Susan was one of those. I think a lot of people are standing on their shoulders now. But because she was so good at her job and because she was strong and tough and could deal with that environment, the players loved her. So I promise you, when Calvin did that, he's protecting her. They were looking up for her. So who's this guy? I'm checking this guy out. Steve. Poor Steve has to pass the Calvin test, right?

Mark: I know maybe your modesty would keep you from fully tooting your own horn, Susan, but when you look back at that time, your role with the Nuggets and how the league has evolved and how popular the WNBA is now, We went to the summit game and it was incredible. Our dad was crying, our sister was crying. this means to so many women? So many people.

Jenny: It was just overwhelming how many people.

Mark: I don't know. What do you think about your role in the Nuggets and the women who came after you and have stood on your shoulders?

Susan Hagar: Wow, that's too much. I don't think of it that way. I didn't think of it that way at the time. I always thought I had a gift of great timing. I work really hard and I was really lucky. and I had great people around me. That's what it was.

Jay Clark: And you're right, she won't tune in.

Mark: But I'm sure there was some things particular to you that not just anybody in your position would have done.

Jay Clark: And the posters are exhibit A.

Susan Hagar: It was a great experience. It was a great time in my life for sure. When it was time to go, it was time to go. But yeah, no regrets.

Jenny: We've talked about that sentiment before on our podcast the idea that everything's ending right and we just have to take advantage of the good, the good while we have it so I mean. for your mother to have had her swoon moment and for Susan to have given us these years and these awesome photo shoot setups. It's all so special.

Susan Hagar: I went back, I took the summer off after my son was born. and went back for one season. And I remember, it shows you how fun it was. Jay made him a little press pass. And he had this little blob of a baby. But it was not the kind of thing, partly because it was changing, and partly because it was just all consuming. It was hard enough to do after I got married. But with a baby at home, it was You know, when you have a different reason to go home at the end of the day, you want to get there a little sooner.

Mark: Not have to be putting towels on the backs of all the seats.

Jenny: Wondering what your baby's up to.

Mark: Correct.

Susan Hagar: What's that little blob doing out there? Yeah, what am I missing?

Jenny: I recently heard Michelle Obama say that she's reframed the idea of Women can have it all. She says we can have it all just not at the same time. That's exactly right. You did your stint with making the nuggets fun.

Susan Hagar: And really I've said many times, you know, and my kids as they got older ask, gosh, you left that one? Well, I left it for you. Right. And it was actually probably one of the best decisions, I think, looking back I've ever made. to be around more for them was definitely worth it. That's awesome. Did you ask all your questions? Yeah.

Jenny: Yeah.

Jay Clark: Well, I love the podcast platforms so much because it does give folks like yourself that are big fans of a platform to express your- Jake has a great podcast.

Susan Hagar: You do? Oh, OK.

Jay Clark: I've kind of retired it. But it's just great that there's a platform for you to share your passion with other folks. You know, it's been very fun to relive a lot of this. What's your podcast called? My podcast is called Making the World Better. It's with non-profit leaders.

Mark: Cool.

Jay Clark: Doing great stuff.

Mark: Episodes are available even though you're are you not making new ones?

Jay Clark: I haven't done one in a minute. So I did them so I could combine them into a book, which I did. So now I've kind of retired.

Susan Hagar: See? Speaking of who's being modest. Oh, my book. My book that I wrote.

Jay Clark: that I've sold tens of copies.

Mark: You wrote a book, though. I wrote a book. It was great fun. That's awesome. That's in itself an incredible accomplishment.

Jay Clark: Well, and echoing kind of what Susan said, I remember my last year with the team, which was a great year. It was Dan Missel's second year as our head coach. The team was young and really good. And I thought they really had a chance to do something It was when we beat Seattle in the first round of the playoffs, first eight seed to knock off a one, then we took Utah who ended up going to the finals to seven games. If we could have won that seventh game, I'm pretty sure we would have made the finals that year.

Mark: Who did the jazz play in the conference finals?

Jay Clark: Dallas. I think. Take that back. I don't remember. I don't remember either. Sorry, I didn't mean to put you on the spot. No, I don't remember.

Mark: The season for me ended when the Nuggets won that year. That was all I remember.

Jay Clark: But I remember getting home from game seven of that Utah series. And once your team is on the playoff track, there is no days off. I mean, you're working seven days a week. If you don't have a game, it's 9 to 5. But we were on the playoff track. So I was going on 65, 70 days with no days off, which, again, was fun in part. But with a little girl at home, I remember getting home from that Utah game. And I walk in to the house. 8 o'clock in the morning or whatever after our early flight gets in. And my daughter walks up and goes, hi dad, when are you going to the office? First thing she says to me, I said, this is, it's time.

Mark: Well, thank you guys so much.

Susan Hagar: Is there anything we didn't ask you about that you want to tell us?

Jenny: Any stories you want to make sure we hear?

Susan Hagar: We all get together. There's a little reunion group we gather at Bill Ficke's Big Bill New York Pizza. And it's just like this. There's a million stories. And we've been reminiscing a lot lately with the loss of our beloved Gugmo. So it's always fun to think back to those.

Jay Clark: Well, and yeah, and I tell everyone, you know, we all should be more like Doug from the standpoint of he made everybody feel seen. And I think that's something we all could do a better job of modeling. When I first started with the team, low man on the tiller and pull again, our staff wasn't that huge, maybe 25, 30 people. But every day when the team was in town, Doug would stop by our office, Susan and I and two other folks, we kind of shared those two coat closet sized offices. Doug would stop by every day and just to BS and Those conversations made me feel like I was the most important. Here's the most in-demand guy. Again, going back to that time, it's Dan Reeves with the Broncos and Doug Moe with the Nuggets. Those are the two biggest personalities in town sports wise. Guess what? One of those two guys is stopping by my office every day just to be us. I don't remember any of those conversations other than not one of them had anything to do with basketball.

Susan Hagar: Yeah, they weren't work.

Jay Clark: But that guy made me feel like I was super important. And it was just a gift he had that, you know, I've tried to model that and I think we could all do a better job of that. I want to, I miss.

Susan Hagar: That was his superpower. I miss my friend dearly.

Jay Clark: And, you know, we should all be more like Doug.

Jenny: Yeah.

Jay Clark: That's the only thing.

Jenny: That'll be our first run of t-shirts when our podcast takes off. Be more like Doug. Be more like Doug.

Mark: We need to go to that pizza place too. The world would be better. Cause that, he used to go like,

Jay Clark: There's a table there called the Dugmo Corner. It's on the table here.

Susan Hagar: You haven't been to Big Dugmo?

Jay Clark: County Line and Holley.

Jenny: Where is it? I've never even heard of it. County Line and Holley.

Susan Hagar: If you go for lunch, any weekday, Bill has that table.

Jay Clark: And Bill was on Doug's coaching staff for two years, so that's the connection. And they remain dear friends. And this is, again, going back to the smallness, and before everything kind of blew up, to think of, I mean, you all have had careers. When you had kind of your first big job, I mean, we're still, I'm as close with people I had my first big job with as I am with any people I worked with in my career. And I think that's pretty rare because we did go through so many intense kind of things together that we all have stayed close. And we might not see each other every day, but when we get together, it's like we saw each other yesterday.

Susan Hagar: So that's maybe the greatest gift that the job gave me. God bless her. Lisa Johnson.

Mark: Still works for the Nuggets.

Jay Clark: Still works. It's season 45, I think, for her. Season 45? Yeah.

Susan Hagar: What does she do?

Jay Clark: She's VP of basketball. OK. So she's risen the ranks. Again, another female executive, which is just super inspiring. Yeah, it's incredible.

Jenny: That's awesome.

Mark: What, sorry, I just wanted to hear, like, after you guys talk, hearing you guys talk about that, what's your relationship to the team like now?

Jay Clark: I'll go first. I don't really have one, which is fine, because again, the management and everything, I'm just a super fan like you guys now. Our friend Lisa does take care of us if something cool is going to happen. She'll call and say, hey, Fat Wavers coming to town. We're going to go grab lunch. But she's pretty much the only one left. There's a couple of people outside of her. Deb. But I'm just a big fan now. With a friend on the inside and some history with the team.

Susan Hagar: No real tie.

Mark: Yeah, but do you still watch, do you follow, or is that kind of like, yeah? Sure, absolutely.

Susan Hagar: Yeah, yeah I do, especially now that they're back on television. Right. That helps. Oh my gosh, yeah. That helps. I don't. I go a couple times a year, maybe I'll go to a game. We were just there.

Jay Clark: But you know, I had somebody ask me just a month ago, what's it like to be a PR guy in the NBA? I have no idea. It's not the same job. My last two years were the first two we had email. We were still using a fax machine and there was newspapers and you'd run out in the morning to see what they wrote.

Mark: One of the nostalgic things looking back at those posters was just seeing the Rocky Mountain Museum go in the corner. Yeah, they were the sponsor. Just loved reading that paper. And then it's been a long time since even that paper was around.

Jay Clark: Yeah. But, and one thing people don't remember in the 80s, is with just the Broncos and the Nuggets and it was the Denver Post and the Rocky Mountain News which was maybe the most if not the most one of the top two or three most fierce newspaper wars in the country and the battlefield for that was covering the Broncos and the Nuggets. So that was a super interesting position for the two of us to be in. I miss all that because it was real journalism. Not that there's not real journalism today. It's just different. It's just different. But can you stop and imagine running out in the morning the next day? Oh my gosh, what did they write? That just seems so funny. You have to sleep all night and wait for the morning to come. What's going to be on my doorstep that the 14-year-old kid who is wound up and put a rubber band on? It's just hysterical to think of that, isn't it?

Susan Hagar: The box scores for the early games, and I would have a game night job, several, but remember a mimeograph machine? and you'd have that purple, I mean, I'd leave the press room after a game of my hands where I ruined more clothes. It was that purple ink, but it was all, it was manual. All the stats were all done manually. I was just sitting there with the calculator.

Jay Clark: This is another one of my favorite Doug stories, and I promise I'll shut up. But we used to have, this was pre-internet, obviously, kind of, but we used to have a ticker. It was a little bitty printer that was hooked up to a phone line, And it would zap over scores. So you'd be sitting there, and all of a sudden it goes zap zap, Expos four, Mets two, third inning. And that was really, that was our internet. That was high tech. And to get his mind off of the games that was coming up, Doug would come into our office and plop a seat down right in front of this thing and sit and stare at it.

Jenny: Wait for a score.

Jay Clark: He'd turn around and go, Yankees are up 4-3. And, you know, then you'd get a headline, you know, so-and-so's out tonight.

Mark: Oh, so-and-so's out tonight.

Jay Clark: Won't be pitching for the White Sox because he didn't want to get stressed out about the game. And it's just so funny to think.

Jenny: Stress management technique.

Jay Clark: Well, just to think of the technology at the time compared to, you know, today.

Mark: Thank you so much.