Episode 75: Looking Back at 75 Episodes

00:00.00 bengarmoe Hello and welcome to the mock review with Ben and Drew I'm Ben Garmo well Drew it is great to be back on the show with you. We had a couple of somewhat unplanned weeks off there. We knew there's a little bit of a chance of this just because this time of year is. 00:03.88 Drew And I'm Drew Evans 00:17.30 bengarmoe So incredibly crazy I am coming off of like 6 or seven consecutive weeks of mock trial I know you've been doing so much stuff going on with law school mock trial and coaching college mock trial. But we're really really excited to be back here for our seventy fifth episode which is just genuinely hard to believe and hard to say. 00:30.86 Drew Wow. 00:35.58 bengarmoe We've got a really cool episode plan which we're going to talk about in just a couple of minutes but I guess Drew before we get into what we're doing with our seventy fifth episode how have things been going for you. How's life been since we last talked. 00:48.39 Drew Man I think that for the first time in my life I was prepping like 4 different mock trial cases for either my own competitions for college competitions like it. It was just honestly hell um. But like in in the best ways it was a lot of fun. Um, but between a couple different law school competitions. Um, and then helping undergrads. It's just been been a lot for sure. Um, but ah, a lot of fun and definitely having a good time getting back into the mock trial world I think ah. Definitely am glad that I'm coaching and going to be competing soon. So that's a lot of fun and we've gotten some invitational results that have been exciting I've been keeping my ear to the ground a little bit more than the past few years I'd even say so that's been a lot of fun to see um, but yeah, just excited and and again you know. Echo what you said? sorry it's been a few weeks but we wanted to make our seventy fifth episode special and I think we got a special one in in the hopper right now. 01:50.44 bengarmoe Yeah I totally agree with that. Um, we you know Drew mentioned the the results that have been coming out. We're going to have another episode out soon. Probably a little bit faster than our normal schedule to try to catch up a little bit on all of those results. That's not what this episode is um what this episode is as we've mentioned already is our seventy fifth episode it's been over 4 years since we started this show and so we've been thinking for a little while. Okay, what are we going to do for 75 it's a special number. You know three-quarters of the way to 100. It's kind of an anniversary number. So what are we going to do to appreciate that we've been had the privilege of of doing the show for 75 episodes and so we decided we want to bring on 2 people to kind of turn the mics around a little bit and focus a little bit more on talking about Drew and I and not like going on and on about like all of our personal stories but just talking about the podcast and talking about how we got to where we are um I know for some of you that's probably not why you tune into the show. But I'm going to urge you to stick with it because I think we've got a really cool episode planned and the the reason that we're doing that and and the the way that we're doing that is we brought on 2 really fantastic guests who each know Drew and myself really well. So Drew I'm going to turn it back to you to introduce. Ah, our first guest who is someone that you know well. 05:17.54 Drew Yeah I am so thrilled to have Jordan mcguffee on the podcast with us today. Jordan was one of my co-counsuls at haveford mock trial for many years she basically did everything for the program. Um, she was one of the co-founders. 1 of the co-presidents one of the attorney coaches. 05:24.34 bengarmoe Yes, I definitely do so first of all Jordan it's great to have you on and I'm thrilled to have you on for this conversation. Ah my guest is someone who some of our listeners may know only because he competed in mock trialal a little bit more recently than Jordan and that's Thomas Aari Thomas graduated from umbc's program last year 05:35.81 Drew 1 of the she ran the blacks scrolll tournament for the first couple of years you know Amm not sugarcoding it when I say that she was what funk made have heard mockfi function for the first couple of years um she's one of the main reasons why I got so invested in the team and. 05:42.90 bengarmoe Ah, he's a national champion. He's a 2 time all-american he's a former tbc competitor. He was the president of umbc's program last year leading us ah back to nationals after our national championship win and if you've ever been to an award ceremony with Thomas or really been in a room with Thomas you've probably ah detected his presence at 1 point or another. 05:54.30 Drew I call our close friend um to this day we still chat all the time about mock trial stuff but most recently Jordan ah is now attending boston college law school and she recently won their inner school competition which just shows that she is also really really good at this activity. Um, which. 06:01.58 bengarmoe Ah, it brings me some pain to say this but he is possibly the most charismatic student that I have ever coached and I'm just really excited to have him on to have this conversation so Thomas it's really good to have you on the show. Hey. 06:12.10 Drew I have always known and I'm sad that the rest of the community um never necessarily got to see that in the same way because yeah I don't know I think Jordan could have easily been a Tbc competitor. But anyway um Jordan I'm so glad to have you on podcast. 06:13.52 Thomas Well Ben it's been a long time coming. Um I'm so excited to finally be on the mock review with Ben and Drew and on the seventy fifth episode no less thank you for your kind words. 06:27.75 bengarmoe It's a big honor. You know it's it's it's ah it's an important episode. So I'm really really thrilled that that you're on and and all jokes aside genuinely happy to have you on the show. Ah so we start with origin stories so drew I'm going to kick it back to you so we can get Jordan's origin story. 06:28.42 Drew Then do you want to introduce your guest. 06:48.24 Jordan Yeah, so I mean I started my high school's mock trial team as well. I did that for ah 3 years in high school and then when I went to college I knew I wanted to start a program at Haverford as well. So I connected with um, my co-founder Nick Beilli and we started it at haver for it. It's always just been something that I've been very passionate about and I've I've loved it. I think it's one of those things that as soon as you get a taste for it. You get addicted to it and I feel like recently I competing in law school is feeling like coming out of retirement in a way but I've definitely. The addiction is back now. So I'm very excited to keep on competing. 07:32.33 Jordan Um, oh actually our rival school had a very good program and then I was I very competitive so I was like well we have to found our own program to beat them. Um, we didn't beat them while I was there but they they beat them a couple years after I graduated which was very exciting. 07:48.34 Drew All right? Jordan well you heard it from the man. What's your origin story. How'd you get involved in mock trial. 07:48.92 Jordan Thank you I'd like to think so. 07:53.20 bengarmoe Yeah, and and I love that every good mock trial story should start with pettiness like at the end of the day if everything starts with pettiness. The world would be a worse place but in my mind a slightly more interesting place. Um, so Thomas you and I have talked about this before since I know you came from the Maryland high school system. 07:56.50 Jordan What. 08:09.44 bengarmoe But give me your your mock trial origin story. 08:12.72 Thomas Sure, um, my story does not start with pettiness but rather incompetence um I started with my high schools team in my freshman year of high school I went to Walter Johnson high school in Bethesda Maryland. 08:30.50 Thomas And I you know it was a lot of fun. We didn't really know how to do anything related to mock trial. We would just you know, kind of screw around all the time and and argue and be you know, kind of mean to the other teams because that's what we thought was what real lawyers did. 08:30.40 Drew So Jordan if you founded your high school program like what was your first even taste of it. How did you hear about it. 08:48.20 Thomas And and then when I went to college I I joined the umbc team I started out on the c team and I always say that our my c team coach then Dylan who was a alumni of the program alumnus of the program I should say um, he taught me more in three months 08:52.50 Drew You laid the groundwork for sure. Ok Ben if you want to do Thomas. 09:07.45 Thomas About how to do mock trial than I learned in 4 years of high school mock trial so that is my origin story I have graduated from I hope incompetence to pettiness when it comes to mock trial. So. 09:22.49 bengarmoe Look I coach you. So if you didn't graduate with a sense of pattiness then I'll be I'll be deeply disappointed. Um thomas real quick. Ah, just one other stop along the way with your early mock trial career. Can you tell the people what your first ever. A team round was because I still think that's one of my favorite sort of footnotes on your mock trial career. 09:43.42 Thomas Oh yeah, holy crap. So um, my like well my first ever a team round as a witness or as an attorney because those okay okay, okay, my witness. Yeah, so my first ever one was at nationals um against Berkeley. So. 09:48.89 bengarmoe As a witness like your first ever one. 10:00.56 Thomas That was crazy my freshman year and I played Dakota Rivers but you know we played them as Dakota W Rivers and yes it was as bad as you think it was but I think we had I think we had some pretty good jokes in there I think one of the best jokes we ever wrote in Ubc Mock trial for a witness was with that witness. But. Not to toot my own horn too much. 10:24.31 bengarmoe So I Thomas ah I thought and and I may have just blocked out that nationals but I thought that your first round was was yale but now I'm remembering that was when you were on your backup witness. Um. 10:33.29 Thomas Yeah, that was what that was my backup witness that we had not written until the night before and I was being crossed by Elizabeth Bays as a witness that I've never done before and also I didn't even have the proper shoes because we were playing a cowboy witness and I had cowboy boots. And then I had I had those and then I had just like my regular sneakers so I had to steal Ben's shoes in order to play the character correctly, yeah right I have stolen more articles of clothing from Ben than I think. 11:00.87 bengarmoe Ah, or your belt or one of your dress shirts or just yeah I'll yeah. 11:10.51 Thomas Any like just to wear like borrowed than any other competitor I think in the country like I stole his like when we were at Tbc we had to go to a fancy dinner and I wanted a better jacket so I was like yo can I use your can I wear your jacket so and he let me wear its jacket. It's like a bespoke jacket. It barely fit me because me and Ben have different body type. Its. 11:25.46 bengarmoe So. 11:28.35 Thomas But it was good. It worked and it was it pick it. You know took pictures very well. So there you go. 11:33.12 bengarmoe So yeah, ah well drew. You know we've got Thomas's origin on the books. So do you want to go back to Jordan and get a little bit more about what Jordan's been up to. 12:08.40 Drew You're not a real coach until you're giving up your shoes for your fellow students. Always always. 12:20.62 Drew Nice. 12:28.40 Jordan Ah, yeah, absolutely so our first season was horrific. Um, we we did not even manage to get the case until like December of that year and we had just cobbled together this program literally only 2 people had had or 3 people who had had mock trial experience before. 12:33.13 Drew Oh my god. 12:45.14 Jordan Um, so we were like we we didn't go to any invitationals. We just went straight to regionals barely had any idea of what to do. We had no idea what a captain's meeting was I was like emailing people up until the day of this tournament being like what do? what do we do in a captain's meeting like would you and I we didn't know that you could even create your own. 12:45.58 Drew Yeah, yeah, so um, certainly so Jordan I think that you and I could easily go back down every single year every single competition and tell all of the random horrible great things that. We've done together. But um, something I just wanted to highlight for people if you can tell everyone um your very first season competing with have I've heard and I actually wasn't even there for this but your very first season to your very last I think that the difference that happened over those 4 years 13:03.75 Jordan Demonstrative so we were like trying to object to these other people's like demonstratives being like well in high school. You could never do that. Um, it was it was bad. We ended up facing uva We didn't even know that we had to like introduce ourselves in the round beforehand but they were so good. They had gone individually to each of us and asked. 13:21.92 Drew Is about as stark a difference as any program in the country has ever had and I think it's in large part because of you and and I wanted to highlight that. So can you tell everyone what happened your first season and then in a second I'll ask you about your last. 13:22.80 Jordan Each of our names prior to the round and then introduced us for for like they introduced us and we didn't even introduce ourselves and that was like the moment I knew what we were going to get wrecked that round like it was it completely. We got completely destroyed. Ah but after that moment we were like ok. We learned a lot. We loved to be going against that rep because that really opened our eyes like oh you can do all these things in Mark trial and then we just took that and and ran with it and became really dedicated to you know, getting better and actually going to invitationals learning what topt tier teams do and implementing some of those strategies. So. Ah, you know and eventually we went to nationals my senior year which you know we were significantly better at that point. Um, but yeah I know it really was we were we were absolute trash the first year but we did win spirit of am to that year you know so we were very nice about it. But we were terrible. 14:56.94 Jordan And yeah, so just to clarify that team that went to nationals my senior year. They're all my best friends still yet. We. We went on a ah ah ah trip to Vegas just this past spring together just to catch up. Yes, it was great. Drew is very good at craps by the way in case, anyone was Wondering. He um it to to him. It seems like a skill almost. But but no, they are. They're truly phenomenal. It's at some point during compete like with one we were competing with with each other for that long. You just learn. 15:19.90 Drew So I mean you you hinted at it. But our senior year your senior year my junior year. Um, obviously things went a little differently and well I don't want to you know, just parade around how awesome we were um like I think that there were so many differences so many lessons that were learned. 15:29.10 Jordan What people's styles. Are you learn how to critique each other and what's going to work for somebody like when giving a speech or in a direct examination you learn it so well that ah even at nationals the the night before the second day of of competition. 15:37.74 Drew And I feel like 1 of the things that at least to me made us so strong was that it was the same team for the most part that had been competing together for 3 years at that point and we all really knew each other really? well so I was wondering if you could just like speak to that and what. 15:42.77 Jordan My witness and I rewrote our entire direct at like 11 p m and then ah I mean relatively successfully pulled it off the next day just kind of ad living it and I think that's something that you could only do when you've just been a part of the same team for so long and know each other so well know how each other's going to respond and you you can anticipate. 15:55.76 Drew That team was like for you because I've talked about it a lot. But I think it's there. There lends some credibility when someone else can corroborate it. 16:01.16 Jordan How Ah like how like that a person will know how to respond to a certain question. It's it was truly it. It felt like a cinderella story a little bit I but it was It was really great I Um, love that team for sure. 16:13.75 Drew This is true. 16:20.51 Drew It's a skill rolling dice. Actually if people didn't know. 17:12.58 Jordan No absolutely. It's still like one of the best memories that I have is of of all of college to be honest, ah I remember even I was talking to you drew before we were. We went to orgs. 17:21.96 Drew And I'll just say one last thing before I give it back to you Ben the the year before we mean it to nationals. Um, we'll probably get into this in a little later but we had a very disappointing season and I remember everyone was really down on themselves. We did not think that highly of ourselves and I I knew. 17:23.96 Jordan And I said like it's not enough to just make it to nationals if we if we break to nationals we need to be 1 of like the top teams there. So people think that we're real competition when we go and we ended up being I think like the the third team to make it through or something like that or a second. Oh. Yeah, and ah just hearing them call our name. We were all grabbing each other's hands like almost like in a prayer circle while we were sitting down all just like like hunkered down like oh my gosh they're going to like is at that point we had't. We'd known. Our record was good enough that we were going to make it through but we didn't know what position we were going to be when we made it through. 17:39.72 Drew We had a really talented group and I kept telling everyone like hey we we can make it to nationals. We are that good and like I mean Jordan I know everyone's goal was like make it to ors like that'd be great if we made it to ors and I remember when we did everyone say okay, cool. We did it and I'm like no no no like 17:56.23 Jordan And as soon as they called our name. We all flipped out all ran up. It was just such an exciting moment and I saw it. It was also very nice to see a lot of our competitors stood up and like clapped for us when it happened and that was just a nice moment of recognition and definitely something where I felt like oh like all of this hard work is finally paying off. 17:56.59 Drew We can make it to nationals guys like we can really do this thing. Um, but I I still will never forget the moment of us finding Out. We made it to nationals and I just wanted to give you a chance to talk about it because I'm sure it's still seared into your memory. Um. I Remember who said it I Remember how he said it like it's just it's never I'm never going to forget it. 18:30.36 Drew Um. 18:41.80 Drew No second we were second yeah. 19:13.34 bengarmoe Yeah I think I really only have a couple things that I wanted to to ask Thomas about I mean Thomas and I could talk about mock trial for hours and have talked about mock trial for hours. Um, but Thomas I guess I was just kind of curious. You know it's been ah like about a year and a half since we had your your teammates Sidney and Thomas Kyli on 19:20.40 Drew Yeah, and I'm sorry I know we're going too long and Ben I'm about to give it to you but it's funny Jordan you mentioned the whole clapping thing and I remember we had discussed that there was this like there's this weird like when you're not 1 of the teams that people know and you're not really. 19:30.91 bengarmoe After the national championship win. Ah for you I think that was a really interesting experience. You were the double middle on that team your sophomore year with Sidney and Ethan that I think could have done a lot of damage at the canceled nationals. Um, and then the following year you come back. Ethan has graduated you take a really big step forward and of course that that. 19:37.34 Drew In on the the group I think that once you go to to nationals become a regular orcs competitor. You get to know a bunch of other teams. There's this like oh my friend made it I want to like applaud for them and up until that point we had very much so felt like outsiders of that group we had never we you know we would clap for other people. But you know. 19:50.46 bengarmoe Team goes on on Zoom to win the national championship. So what was that season like from your perspective taking a big step forward being a leader on that team and now that you've had some time you know it's like said it's been about a year and a half since the national championship win when you look back on it. What do you think about. 19:56.88 Drew No one knew who Haveford was like I don't blame them. Um and that was the first moment where we were like oh shit like you know we know a lot of these people and and they're all like you know they they recognize that we belong. Um, and so that was a very very very cool moment. Jordan I appreciate you mentioning it all right? So enough about how great haveford is and was. 20:07.49 bengarmoe When you think about that season. 20:10.11 Thomas Um I think about the pain of being online but you know I like seriously when it comes to the nationals run like from regionals. 20:16.55 Drew Um, Ben I'll I'll give it back to you if you and Thomas want to go through any your glory days. 20:25.14 Thomas To nationals or from like the first invitational I think like I don't I never really thought about pressure or anything like that up until we got to like regionals. Maybe um I was just focused on getting better improving on myself and then. You know working from there I feel like I have a different approach to competitiveness than most other people do like it doesn't really hit me until it's there and then from there. It's just kind of just like yeah well if we do well we do well if we don't then you know I got try our best and and that's all we can ask. But I yeah, once we got to. Regionals and orcs. Especially I thought we got lucky a lot of times and our luck was accelerated by our hard work and effort. So it really taught me the value of working hard because if you don't it was like a moment where there was a moment where I've I've realized like as as. Silly as it sounds I realized like I'm only going to get out of this as much as I put in and I put in double the amount that I you know usually did and and it kind of blossomed into a cinderella story to take Jordan's words and they go. Yeah. 21:40.43 bengarmoe Yeah, it is funny that I mean that the online year is such a weird. Yeah I mean the last two years obviously have been so strange because last year was like back and forth and back and forth. But the all online year I mean there are times where it just feels like a fever dream like you know did did we really spend this much time. You know I mean you think especially once we got to January of that year um just ah, going back and forth like you know, being on our computers 3 4 5 nights a week scrimmaging was kind of wild. Um I'll ask you this then. So obviously that was your junior year and and then last year you were president of the program and and you took a major step forward in terms of your role on the team and and while I understand that you know nationals didn't go exactly the way that we hoped it did we got back to nationals. Ah for the fourth year in a row so what was it like last year you know we're coming off of the championship win. Sidney and Thomas Kylie have graduated a lot of that championship team is still there. Um, but some of them have moved on and and we're kind of trying to live in the shadow of of being national champions and of moving forward and we talked I remember we talked about it internally about some of the challenges. So from your perspective. What was last year like in terms of. I guess living in that shadow a little bit but also trying to forge our own identity as a team um in that season. So. 22:58.70 Thomas Last year was a like I was so focused on not like looking like a bozo if that makes sense like we like I just wanted to get to nationals like I figured if we got to nationals. 23:10.11 bengarmoe Yeah, yeah. 23:16.57 Thomas We were in bozos and then we could go from there like we know how to prep for nationals we can. We can do you know, reasonably well and well you know what happened happened but but I I just wanted to get there I wanted to get back there I didn't want it to be like a we get knocked out of regionals or we get knocked out at org's type of deal. Um. Because that would have been horrible being able to finish the season at nationals with everybody who you know and like this is your last one you made it to the final stage was perfect like it was it was what I wanted and it was what we got I didn't feel. Any major pressure to you know do a 2 peat or anything like that just because like I knew I knew that we managed to get there because of because everything kind of aligned perfectly. We adapted to the online space in a wonderful way and then we um. Had an amazingly talented team and everything worked perfectly together and then it's like impossible. No matter who's on the team but we kept most of the people that we had for the national state. No matter who's on the team if it's 1 or 2 things are different. You're not It's really hard to recreate something like that. But I had a lot of fun. Which I think is the most important thing. 24:34.42 bengarmoe Yeah I really do agree I look back at last year's season like you know it's funny. Yeah, okay, we didn't place a nationals. We were 1 ballot away. Um and like that happens and that's fine. But like I don't know second place a gams. He pretty good and having the season that we did and getting back to nationals is pretty good. So I look at last season with. With a lot of pride and like a lot of joy about what we're able to accomplish and and you know, especially being back to in-person and everybody's wearing masks and we're all just kind of trying to make the best of of ah you know a difficult situation I think it was ah a really successful season. All things considered. Ah, so Drew I know that we're getting to the point where we were gonna kind of flip the script a little bit. So do you want to do that and maybe sort of hand things off to Jordan and Thomas to to turn the mics around. So. So perfect. 25:41.80 Jordan Honestly, absolutely yes, it. It's no it. It would have made I mean like we we spent a whole lot of time practicing preparing getting good at mock trial easily 50% of my total time. Do if if not more of doing mock trial consisted of administrative tasks. Dealing dealing with people and solving their issues and I think that it's just so hard on other students having to be judged by their peers that I I do wish that there had been a coach that we could have leaned on a little bit more to make some of the harder decisions for us and then not felt like. You know the the repercussions of that would would come back and hurt our friendships potentially. 26:17.24 Drew Yep, yep, sure. I will I actually remembered that I have one last thing I want to ask Jordan and then I'm going to do that. But Jordan so this is something that I've said multiple times on the podcast. But I'm wondering what you think so as people well know Haveford was a student run program as as we've expressed that was kind of all we were doing the show. 26:26.56 bengarmoe Gee Are you trying to get us canceled like you're active. 26:26.92 Thomas The coach the coach run programs Sometimes wish they were student run too. So I. 26:33.69 bengarmoe Oh God okay. 26:43.57 Drew Jordan if we could have had a coach. Do you wish you could have had 1 yup yup see 27:05.10 Jordan Yeah, absolutely ah all right? Well so Drew I'll ask you um about your high school days and so tell me a little bit about that I know you were the captain of your team in high school. But what was the maybe the transition to to college like why did you choose Haverford I know you sent us. 27:07.22 Drew Um. 27:22.94 Jordan Quite a few messages prior to coming to haverford about the team. Ah so yeah, just tell us a little bit about about that experience. 27:25.95 Drew Yep I couldn't agree more? Okay, just wanted to corroborate that even student run programs which they were coached. Okay, so with that. Um, you know the grass is always greener. Okay. Everyone wishes they had what they don't have um, okay so with that ah we do want to turn over the mics to both Jordan and Thomas. Um, so again, the point of this is just kind of. We're going to be the interviewer or the interviewees and you all will be the interviewers. So you guys know us pretty well if you want to just kind of start with our origin stories and go from there. Hopefully we'll have things to talk about but ah Jordan since we've been going first I guess let's keep going first. 28:30.53 Drew This is true. 28:37.83 Drew So ah, basically what Jordan is alluding to is the fact that um I so I should say I did do high school mock trial as Jordan said um I actually only enjoy my sophomore year. Um I did it because a friend of mine said that if I didn't do it. They would stop being friends of me and it was the perfect activity for me and they were. 28:47.79 bengarmoe Nail it. 28:54.30 Drew They were right? So Jessica thank you? Um, but I did high school mock trial. It was the captain. My team like Jordan said we were very mid like you know Georgia's a very very competitive mock trial state. We never really made it to states or anything but we were fine. Um, what Jordan is talking about is the fact that when I found out I was going to have Aford. 29:06.38 Jordan It? Yes, definitely I still remember the the first time that I met you I was it was an info session and we were asking just questions general questions about rules of evidence and you raised your hand to answer literally every single question. Yes, but you know we admired the initiative. 29:13.99 Drew Um I had actually been told when I was on a tour the year before that a team didn't exist because it technically didn't yet. Um, and then when I was looking into it or looking into how to start a club I saw that it did exist now and I saw that the contact people were this random girl named Jordan Mcguffee and this guy named nick berilli. 29:25.90 Jordan Um, and definitely the dedication. But but yeah, no I did not think that I was going to like you at that point for sure I was like oh he'll maybe be pretty good but I don't know if we're going to get along. Um, so yeah, well let's tell us a tell me a little bit about how you first got into mock trial analytics. Um, where did that. 29:33.35 Drew And I was like okay well let me reach out to them and and let them know what's up so I sent ah a rather embarrassing Facebook message I think was Facebook message um detailing my accolades and how great I was at high school mock trial and what an asset I would be to the team and I think the keyword is ass an asset. 29:44.54 Jordan Come from I remember being so stunned when you would pull out all of these facts about you know competitors like amta in general and I had no idea where you were getting it from and so so what? what? how did that evolve. 29:53.14 Drew Um, but um, yeah I don't think that they yeah thank you Thank you? Um I don't know that ah that they took too fondly to it. But I think that Jordan you can probably ah say it better. But I think that the team was in a point where you had to to take a few risks on a few assholes. And the hope that it would would help the program and I like to think that I improved from there. 30:19.30 Drew Yeah. 30:27.83 Drew That's that's correct. 30:39.75 Drew Yeah. 30:48.23 Drew Oh god. 31:01.16 Drew Um, so I remember at our first few competitions I was fascinated by you know how were the other teams doing the competition who are we going to face next and so I would literally game out I would get you know. I think I would do it on napkins at dinner. Some of the times but I would game out. Okay, this team played this team I bet this team won so they're probably 2 and 0 this team played this team and now they're playing this other team so they're probably just one and one maybe they split that round. Um and I literally would game it all out and I would have these lists of where I thought everyone was. 31:19.75 bengarmoe A. 31:36.32 Drew And okay, we're plain we're you know, plaintiff on this side. So we're going to be defense the round after and we have to face one of these teams and it's probably going to be this one like I was doing all of it not knowing that there's a tab room that I could go to and find out exactly what all the records were exactly who we were likely to face. 31:36.58 Jordan Yeah, so you know going along that vein I would be really interested to hear. Ah what year you think that you experienced the most growth as a mock trial competitor and ah, why do you think that that is. 31:54.93 Drew Um I was just trying to do it by hand I was just using the pairings that got sent out um and trying to do that so there are are sheets and sheets of very useless wasted time. Um that I spent doing that and then the analytics was just me discovering perjuries and and becoming in love with that whole side of the community and. And discussing ah teams that you didn't even go against and and finding out about that. But um, I'm pretty sure that when I first told the rest of the have Aford team about the existence of tab cards about perjuries and all the rest you guys like didn't even believe me are like what are you talking about like There's no way you can go and just find out other teams results. Um, and I was like yeah I think we can like I think we just go into this room and they they have to tell us? Um, so that was that was a fun experience. I think for sure. 32:56.27 Drew Okay, so growth often comes through pain and basically my first year um I actually was a witness so I just witnessed for the a team and then my second year um I I told them I really don't want to witness anymore I hate it because I do. Um, and I wanted to be an attorney and I was placed on our b team as an attorney and to be clear are 2 the 2 other a attorneys outside of Jordan were both abroad that year. So I was expecting. That I was going to be on a which is probably not a good thing to do again ass and asset keywords um I had high expectations of myself and I was hoping that I was b on a and I was not and I think that um it was a bit of a wakeup call for me in a lot of ways and. The b team didn't do super well I captained it but it was not a good time. Um I love all those people they're all wonderful, but the team just didn't do as well as we were hoping and between my my sophomore my junior year I think I spent a ton of time working on how can I get better. How can I improve and I think I had humbled I've been humbled a lot. And I I mean Jordan I know I went to you a lot I went to everyone about how can I improve what can I be doing better um and trying to find ways to get better I watched so much mock trial that year I remember we went to downtown I watched a ton of rounds of that I went with the 18 to regionals watched all their rounds. Um, you know I just wanted to absorb as much as I could. 34:13.82 Jordan And yes, no I would agree I I've absolutely loved being able to watch you grow as competitors for the three years that we overlapped it was. It was so phenomenal and I love to being able to advocate for you to be on RET when we went to nationals that was a really fun moment for me. 34:27.65 Drew And I think that I made a bunch of strides that year um and my junior year that was the Jordan senior year when we were pretty pretty good. So I like to think that I made some some good strides that year um but yeah I think that it's it's funny because. 34:29.93 Jordan Um, but I would be remiss if I didn't bring up. Ah so your your freshman year the Bancroft the Covington case could you please tell the listeners of this podcast. What what? you thought we should make that we should say that the cover of. 34:44.76 Drew I think I was so sore and so upset about um, being stacked onto the B team but I do think that it's one of those things where you sometimes need to get knocked down a peg in order to realize that there's somewhere higher up that you can go and I think that that was really helpful for me and I think that similarly. 34:45.72 Jordan That the briefcase should be made out of and. 35:04.19 Drew The whole team that year went through something similar to that where when we didn't perform as well as when the 18 didn't perform as well as they had wanted um, realizing that we really needed to work harder if we wanted to reach our goals and then we were able to exceed them. So I think that growth through pain but growth all the same. 35:42.96 Drew Um. 35:45.32 Drew Oh no. 35:51.49 Drew Yes, okay, so so here's the deal. So basically I don't even remember why but we like this just goes to show what our team would spend our hours on 35:54.96 Jordan I think I loved imagining how many poison dark frogs would have had to die to to make up but the entirety of the outside of a briefcase with the like one square inch of material. You might get from each one of them. 35:58.90 bengarmoe I. 36:07.94 Drew But we were having an intense discussion because when I was playing Devin Del Sesto which for those that don't know that was the the expert in luggage. Um, in that case that was a bell hop. Um, and I had a whole bit where I wanted to be really into ah Avery Bancroft's briefcase and it's the coolest briefcase in the world. 36:12.15 Thomas And that's why they're endangered right now. So. 36:14.32 Jordan I. 36:14.36 bengarmoe Hey. 36:19.80 Jordan Yeah, so I guess well can you talk about what it felt like for you to eventually make it to the to the team that eventually went to nationals and maybe what it was like being one of the only people who really did. 36:27.81 Drew Because it's made out of poisoned dart frog leather I Want to think of something really exotic and out there and when I pitched that to the rest of the team for whatever reason they just thought it was silly and wasn't worth saying I don't really know why I think it was brilliant. Um, but yeah I was really into the poison dart Frog Leather I thought it was ah. 36:33.80 Jordan But like from the get go believe like no, we we really can do this and almost it being treated like a conspiracy theory. 36:47.45 Drew You know it was going to be a pretty purple Sheen I was going to really talk all about it how you had to be careful what you touched it with was going to really lend our theory. You know it was going to be great. Um, but yes I I had my moments I think as a witness trying trying and and failing to build character. 37:13.76 Drew Yeah, you know that's why it's so exotic and so special and so unique and no one could ever confuse it with another briefcase exactly because people were assholes and making them into briefcases. 37:35.12 Drew Sure. 37:45.41 Drew Yeah I mean so when we went to downtown I remember that moment watching you know some of the best teams out there for those of that don't know downtown was the New York the mi tournament um that that used to be run that was basically the equivalent of. Chicago fire nowadays. Um in which it was just all of the top teams in January right before regionals going edit and we emailed and asked if we could come watch and they were like yeah sure come on down so we we watched the rounds and I remember being like wow these teams are really really good, but wait a minute like they're doing the same thing. That we are in terms of just they're arguing the same case the same facts like it's not that they have this special sauce that we don't have we can do this and I remember going back to the rest of the team being like hey we can hanging with these guys like they are not so many tears above us that we should never dream about. Being as good as them and and Jordan's right I mean people were like no like they are so much better. There's no way. Um and it took a lot of time I mean that that year that we became really good. Um, the tourment that I think really woke us up to it was we went down to Florida and we faced. Um. 38:49.20 Jordan And well now that you're out of college. Ah, what are you involved with in in your law school ah in your law school career. Well I know I know you still help coach haperford because we do that together but are you involved with any of it Are you involved with any other deans. 38:59.11 Drew A bunch of really good teams but our our last round was against we faced Florida and round 3 and then tech in round four and we swept both of them and I think it was that moment and it was that moment where we were like whoa. You know these are 2 teams that always make it to nationals that are really really good. You know tech was at the time ranked like fourth or fifth in the country and we were like wait. We just beat them like maybe we can do this? Um and I think from then on all of us were were on that same boat. But I think that for me beating tech was the moment that I I was like yes. 39:29.67 Jordan Yes. 39:35.42 Drew We are a nationals caliber team and and anything less than that I was going to be dissatisfied with um but it was it was a really amazing moment just as Jordan said before these are all my closest friends and and we just so much enjoyed getting to compete together and getting to find success finally was. 1 of the most gratifying things in the whole world. 40:01.23 Jordan All right? Well thank you I think that that is the end of my questions unless there's something I've forgotten but but thank you for your candor. 40:07.79 Drew Yes, yes, we do? Yeah um, as people probably know I now go to tulane law and I compete for the twolane law school mock trial team and I also coach their undergraduate team. So um, been very involved with them. Um, they are you know, kind of in the thralls of figuring out. 40:13.63 Thomas Sure if there's anybody who's still listening to ah no I'm just kidding the point the the joke there was that they don't They don't really care about your guys as origin stories. But um, hopefully they do so ben. 40:25.22 Drew Stacking and all the rest right now. So we're having a lot of fun with that. Um, and like Jordan said I still help out have for team a lot from time to time I will say I think that they are slowly becoming more and more independent from us. Um I would love to help them more but I also think that with a being back in person and us being all. 40:31.42 Thomas I know that now you're at the the tippy top of the mock trial world when it comes to Maryland mock trial specifically you're the case writer for two or three years now for the Maryland high school case you run the Maryland high school competitions pretty much. 40:43.51 Drew Very very far away. It's just it can be hard at times but they're great I really really like them and they just did a great job with black squirrel. So I'm very very happy for them and yeah I'm excited I haven't actually gotten to formally compete with the twolane ah lawach trial team. Ah basically all the 2 ls aren't allowed to compete until this spring. 40:50.17 Thomas And you know your coach Youbc umd The you're the the salisbury director of trial advocacy over at umd. So what was it like back in the day when you were just a ah young. 41:01.83 Drew So we will start having some competitions then and I'm really really excited about them and I will definitely share with the podcast how we end up doing. 41:05.60 Thomas Freshmen at Buie high school tell us what tell us your origin story from there. 41:09.98 bengarmoe So mock trial started for me I guess it would have been in the fall of 2003 um was when I started as a freshman at Buie and I had um like a state and local government teacher who was she wasn't the coach but she was like the faculty advisor for mock trial. 41:15.66 Drew Yeah I always try Thomas you want to take it away. 41:23.50 Drew Well dang. Okay sorry I was I Oh my gosh. 41:27.70 bengarmoe And she mentioned it in class one day I don't even remember what piqued my interest about it. But I just kind of was like oh that that sounds kind of interesting I'm looking for things to do. Um I was at a large public school for the first time so I went to the first practice and ah ended up getting assigned as a witness that year and we had this attorney coach I don't know if I've ever mentioned my high school attorney coach John Kyler on the program before but he was like if there's one figure who is responsible for everything that I've been able to accomplish in my mock trial life that has now become a large chunk of my real life It's it's John Kyler who was for many many years the amazing attorney coach at Buuie high. Um, he just got it. He just understood this activity and he was like he he would actually take this as a compliment but he was just ah, a complete asshole. Um, but he would teach us things. 42:24.53 Thomas And. 42:25.80 bengarmoe Yeah, no, right? You know you see it every so often. But and it wasn't he wasn't mean to other teams but like he was a tough coach but like he was so dedicated. He was a successful attorney who had you know his story was I kept winning and I got bored. Um I think there was probably a little bit more to the story than that. But he transitioned to being a high school ah social studies teacher and he was our attorney coach and he was responsible for me learning. Basically everything that I did ah my sophomore year I was an attorney on one side and my junior year ah myself and and 2 of my teammates. We double sided. And we were easily the best team in the circuit and just got absolutely robbed in 1 of our earlier rounds and then senior year. Ah we competed and we did manage to advance to states and we beat a large rich private school on our way. Um, which is ah still a very proud memory of mine winning that. That last trial in order to make it to states so high school mock trial for me was was a journey you know was definitely up and down but it it set the seeds in motion it really you know, planted this this love of this activity that has continued for so many years and and I just. 43:30.20 Drew So common Trend Common trend. 43:37.41 bengarmoe You know I look back at that and I have so much appreciation for that. My high school coach who was the person who was not getting paid any extra not getting extra appreciation or anything like that and was just spending hours and hours after school with us because he he was choosing to do so and he was choosing to volunteer his time. And I've tried to kind of carry that through in my coaching career. 44:00.43 Thomas Well, you definitely have um, stayed hours and hours and hours after after in order to help us so I'm sure that you're carrying on your coach's legacy pretty well. Um, so when you get to you Nbc and. 44:04.19 bengarmoe I Add a stroke. 44:17.75 Thomas You know you walk up the one road that we have on our huge campus. Um, you know you you walk into the student business or not suit business Geez The you know the commons. 44:21.70 bengarmoe A. 44:33.60 Thomas Where's the Umbc mock trial team at that point can you tell us about that. 44:38.56 bengarmoe The umbc mock trial team is not much at at that point. Um it did technically exist we we existed from like 2002 to 2006 or 2007 under Dr Jeffrey Davis and had a little bit of success. Um, and then ah went away. And in I think 2010 our founding president for this iteration. Travis Bell who was our president our very first year he was at umbc a year before me I was a transfer and he had restarted the club but we didn't compete for like the 2010 amta season. We didn't compete so going into the 2010 invitational season. Towards the 2011 amta season. Um, or actually I'm getting I'm a year behind the 2011 and invitational season towards the 2012 amta season we were trying to compete in amta for the first time my brother Zach who's younger than me and was a freshman at umbc when I was a transfer we came in at the same year. We both he za did mock trial in high school at bui as well. So we were like well we want to find the mock trial team so we found them at the involvement fair and sort of realized pretty quickly that like it wasn't you know like it. It was a really really small thing. It was like not really established at all. And so he and I were attorney witness pairs on the first two years of Umbc Mock trial um and we were so bad um we were just just like delightfully bad um in our very first competition ever. We got drawn against the university of Maine who was also brand new. Um. 46:06.72 bengarmoe And we beat them somehow still not entirely clear how and our reward this is an American University's old invitational was duke a who if you know your am to history would then go on to win the national championship that year ah and and that round did not go as well as the round before. But. 46:13.27 Thomas Um. 46:25.82 bengarmoe We just kind of started to make mistakes and figure things out and like Drew what you were talking about with like not knowing what tab cards were I had no clue how any of this worked right in our first trial I'm pretty sure we were making high school objections right? We're making like invention of fact objections or like you can't do that objections. We didn't have this the. Faintest hint of a clue of what we were doing but I was only at umbc for 2 years as a transfer and you know we started to figure things out my senior year we had a winning record for the first time. Um, you know, not long after that we had like ah a near miss at Regionals and like our third year and so like we were. Just starting to make those mistakes and figure things out and then after I graduated was when we made read made orcs for the first time and and kind of went from there. 47:15.66 Thomas So what? what was it like as you you know you get into the university of Maryland Francis King Carey school of law. Um I personally I've been shocked at the the years that you've been saying like 16000 you know. 3 was your first round I always thought it was like in the eighteen hundreds. But what was it like competing in law school coming off of 4 years of really competitive mock trial in the under and the high school scene and then two years of kind of going from. You know. Getting destroyed by Duke at an invitational to kind of figuring it out. 47:53.17 bengarmoe Yeah Maryland law changed everything about the way that I do this activity. It is not a coincidence and this is not melt to meant to be a boast about me. It's meant to be a boast about the program at Maryland when I came in Ubc's success started taking off after I made the trial team at Maryland. 47:57.13 Thomas But. 48:13.13 bengarmoe Learned how the trial team at Maryland did things and started to take those things and bring them back to umbc things about how to write materials how to do case theories how to break down evidence all of those things that I think umbc does very well now a lot of those came from a j bolita delluna who was um, my coach. He's now the ah. Assistant dean of advocacy at St Mary's school of law was then the the professor of trial advocacy in Maryland as well as Jerry Dees who was his predecessor and and was the director emeritus of the trial team. They taught me that I mean they just I remember so clearly at the welcome event I made the team did the whole welcome event thing. And I remember talking to aj at that and I was like yeah and I'm really excited and I did this in college and he's like yeah I'm glad you did forget everything like literally every word you think you know about how this is done. Forget it throw it out. We need to tear you down and build you back up and it's the greatest thing that's ever happened to me it turned me into advocate ah that I became whereas a three l I won championships and won awards and turned me into the coach that I am now so Maryland law you know if if I was looking at a couple different schools I knew I wanted to go to a school with a strong trial ad program and I ended up being down to Maryland and Chicago Kent. 49:19.96 Thomas 5 49:28.46 bengarmoe Um, and I ended up going to Maryland largely because it was cheaper. You know it was here at home in state tuition. All that stuff but Maryland changed everything about who I am as an advocate and the fact that I get to lead that program now is crazy and every day I wake up and think that somebody's going to be like wait a second. What is he doing here like why is he here. Why is he in that position that doesn't make any sense. Um, so yeah Maryland Maryland was a turning point for me in terms of my Mocktraw career. Yeah. 49:55.50 Thomas So let you know you mentioned coaching so what? let's talk real quick about your coaching style because I mean I personally have been a um I'm not gonna say victim I have been no I've been a recipient of coaching. From you and I think it's a large part of why I managed to be successful even a little bit when I was doing mock trial because I really didn't know what I was doing I started off on the ctm guys and fun fact. Ben almost cut me so Ben. What made you not cut me. From the team my freshman year and what you know What's your coaching style like how how have you learned from other coaches. Yeah. 50:36.94 bengarmoe Well for that last for that first one you got to thank Whitney Wilder um because Whitney Whitney believed in you and I didn't um and and she was right and I was wrong. Um, very briefly on my coaching style because I don't want to believeor this point too much I'll say two things. Um, the first thing is I do not get angry. Um, coaches who yell coaches who belittle coaches who ah you know insult their students those are bad people they're doing bad things and we should rid them of this. They should be banned from this activity. It's not that you can't be tough and I think Thomas you could acknowledge at times I was tough on you all. But I don't yell. Don't scream I don't insult right? I'm honest, but I'm not. You know it's not personal. Everyone is trying their best and if you're not trying your best. We'll have a conversation about why but you know few things upset me more than when an advocate comes into one of of the 2 programs that I have the privilege of running. And they talk about what I call coaching by abuse. Um, it's just completely unacceptable. Inappropriate should not and must not be tolerated under any circumstances. Um in terms of my coaching approach. A lot of things are pretty regimented. We. You know we have certain ways that we do things at umbc like this is how we do an opening this how we do a closing this so we write a direct um beyond that I just try to be as sort of like holistic as possible. So you know, not every student needs to run something 15 times. 52:06.62 bengarmoe Sometimes they need to run something 2 or 3 times and then sit and have a conversation about how they've got something else going on in their life or how maybe they've got some financial difficulties or they're fighting with their significant other or their parents are upset at them and like really trying to recognize that those types of things are part of being a coach. Um I think there are coaches and I understand look there. There are times where I have no desire to do those things that there are times where I'm like I'm tired I might have something going on in my own life I want to get home. You know all those things. But if you're really going to be immersed in this activity as a coach you have to recognize that your students aren't machines they're human beings. And this activity is nerve-racking and it's pressure filled and it's racist and it's sexist and it can be really difficult to be a part of sometimes and so really just understanding that you have to approach each student differently and whereas you might challenge 1 student and say man that opening just it wasn't very good. Go and do it again but be better right? and that might work really well like Thomas sometimes you and I I think like that's something you you have thick skin and so sometimes you do an opening I'd be like yeah, do it again, but like don't suck that time. Um and I wouldn't say that to a lot of other students I would say it to you because if you if if I felt that way. 53:09.15 Thomas Ah, yeah. 53:21.94 bengarmoe I knew that you probably felt that way too that you're like yeah that wasn't a good run through um and knowing that you communicate with different students differently and just recognizing that every single student has the potential for tremendous growth and I've seen you know like like look Thomas we just joked about it. But as a freshman. I didn't see it initially and as a senior you graduated as a 2 wo-time all-american tbc competitor national champion winning an all- american on the same bench is I think the greatest competitor of all time and so like I would say your mock trial resume is pretty much second to none and I think that's a good example of you have to look at every student. And look for the potential in every student while making sure that you have a process that you use and. 54:03.11 Thomas Well after making a lot of jokes at your expense Ben I will compliment you a lot I think the success that our program has had the success that I have had personally would not have been possible. Literally would not have been possible. You could put any single human being who you think is a good coach um in the role that you had been and I don't think it would have been possible to get a fraction of the success that we had um I you know Ben recently won a award from our alumni association. Just for being so good as an alumni as an alumnus I messed that up a second time geez um, but you know a part of that award. We. We had heard them talking about his unwavering dedication to students and I think seriously the dedication is unwavering. When a lot of times it should waver but it didn't so thank you Ben for that I think that's it for us if we want to move into some more podcast insider related things Jordan do you want to take it away. 55:10.70 Jordan Um, yeah, so um I would love to know how you 2 first met. 55:27.40 Jordan Yeah, wouldn't it have been. 55:32.30 Thomas And we did one national withs because we had a guy like but. 56:20.15 bengarmoe Well Drew I I in preparation for this episode I went back and I found the first email that you ever sent me. Um, and this is a true fact and this is I had forgotten about this but the first email you sent to me this is on September Seventh of 2016 and it's you trying to get in a sec. 56:24.74 Drew Okay I can definitely take this one and I'll say before I even answer it I just want to take a moment hearing Ben talk about his coaching style Jordan like damn wouldn't that have been so cool if we had someone like that right? like I feel like we could have won nationals. We had a guy like him anyway, um. 56:30.62 Jordan Um. 56:37.00 bengarmoe Get a second invite to charm city it says hello Ben Garmin I swear to you I'm looking at it right now and so I'm like that just truly cracks me up. Um, and ah you ah I don't know if this was an official position. Maybe Jordan you can confirm me. 56:39.64 Jordan How now. 56:42.31 Drew Ah, you know that's I know I believe it. It's the difference right? Um I guess not for Yale but you know, um anyway. Okay so how do we meet. So my recollection of how we met was that it was at Temple's tournament. Um, when I was a sophomore captaining the B team. 56:55.83 bengarmoe On this but you yeah your position is executive leader which sounds like you were emperor palpatine of Haverford mock trial. Um, but the the ah first real interaction that we had I mean I think we had chatted briefly but but you're right that round against temple or the round against each other at temple. 56:58.54 Jordan Have. 57:00.70 Drew And we faced umbc and it was the first round of the tournament. It was our first round competing at all as a team and y'all kicked our ass and I was like screw them and like them. But then this like coach came up to me afterwards and was like congratulating me on the round and I was like. 57:15.74 bengarmoe Um, because we traded emails I'm looking here that that summer um you sent me an email trying to convince me to move charm City to a different weekend. Um, which yeah, which which there you know there were a couple reasons why we had to do it then. 57:18.52 Drew Kind of making fake nice and then he turned out to be 1 of my closest friends in this activity. So you know that happened I don't know Ben what's your perspective on it. 57:31.82 bengarmoe But then on May twenty second of 2018 I have the email that I sent you basically being like hey I have this idea and and it's something that had been stuck in the back of my head for a little while I actually had ah like a really rudimentary podcast when I was in high school with a couple friends. It's ah I think it's a really cool medium for people to. 57:33.75 Drew Oh god. 57:48.69 Drew Um, no way. Nice nice. 57:51.20 bengarmoe Express themselves. It's really accessible and so you know Drew you were someone who I knew was like you knew a lot of people and you were really interested like Jordan's talking about earlier in the analytics side of things and so you know that's why I approached you because we you know we had become friendly. So I think that's really the. 58:01.89 Drew Oh this was an official position the executive leader. Oh yes, a very of executive. Yup. 58:07.68 bengarmoe The origin story. We just kind of our teams would would play each other occasionally and still obviously hit each other pretty frequently. But but I remember it was that it was at temples. It was still called the Hooer invitational then I think um yeah I used to love that tournament and all the owl puns too All their team names are alpuns. 58:17.60 Drew And. 58:27.37 bengarmoe But yeah, so so we we did that and then sort of the rest the the last four four and a half years now our our history 58:31.28 Drew Yes I did it was the same weekend as black squirrel. 58:33.90 Thomas That's not to be confused with the hooters invitational which is a whole different all different thing. Um folks it's been 75 episodes ah let you know congratulate yourselves Pat yourselves on the back for a minute that's ridiculous 75 episodes 58:37.40 bengarmoe Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 58:45.70 Drew Um. 58:51.38 Thomas Ah, what do you guys? think about the last four years in terms of your impact on the community. Maybe a favorite episode for a 2 for 1 question. So. 58:52.10 Drew Um. 59:02.91 bengarmoe Yeah, so so I'll just say this real quick on on the podcast I'm really proud of what this podcast has done and and I I think Drew and I won't speak for you but but I think we feel this both that we really try not to elevate this podcast to something. It's not. Right? It's not this like authoritative guide to mock trial I had a really you know I'm on the amta mentorship committee and I had a ah really sweet conversation with ah someone who's my a mentee who was asking me like how do I learn more about the community and he was like I found this podcast and it's fine like. 59:26.60 Drew Yes, it was it was they did all the owl trophies it was great. Yep yep. 59:39.90 bengarmoe It's like it's pretty decent but like I don't know I was wondering if there's anything else and I was just cracking up because if he he hadn't put 2 and 2 together understandably. But I kind of love that because I was like I want this podcast to be something that you know you're getting into mock trial and you stumble across it. 59:45.47 Drew So um. 59:54.48 bengarmoe And you're like all right I Want to learn a little bit about this activity hear from some of its leaders hear from some of its you know prominent competitors and less prominent competitors and I'm I'm just really proud of having had the opportunity to do that and of hopefully making this activity just a little bit more accessible. 01:00:09.21 Drew Ben you want to take this. 01:00:11.38 bengarmoe Because as we've talked about we both started from nowhere. You know Jordan was talking about haver fruits beginnings I was talking about umbcs and we really started from the bottom and both of our programs have achieved some level of success. So I feel very proud and very excited for where the podcast is going from here I do have a thought on a favorite episode but drew out i. Want to give you the opportunity to answer that question too. 01:00:46.33 Drew You know. 01:00:53.83 Drew Um, man. 01:01:06.42 Drew Um. 01:01:22.27 Drew Um, bitten. 01:01:39.32 Drew Sure? Yeah I think that I feel very similarly I I think that when that initial email that Ben is talking about discussing the podcast I remember being like dash or why not like well you know I got some time I could do that? um. Never thinking it would turn into what it has become and I think that for me, it's been a really cool way to meet people um to get to know both amta board members competitors across the country. It's just been a really cool opportunity in that way. Um on a personal level. I also think that just for the community. It's it's really cool and really special to me that when my tulane kids that don't know a ton about mock trial go compete somewhere and they face someone in the round and then at the end they say oh I go to tulane and they could say oh my god I listen to your coach's podcast all the time. And then they are like oh wait people actually know who you are and I'm like yeah like they do. Um I think that those little moments are are cool for me and and definitely something that I never expected would happen and it's definitely been really really cool and a fun ride to be on to the favorite episode I have 2 answers to this question. Um, my favorite recurring episode that we do is the board beating episode because to me it is the most important episode that we do because I think it is getting a chance to actually talk about things that really affect the activity that most people don't know about I know it's not the most listened to episode I know that not everyone. 01:03:07.30 bengarmoe Yeah, I'm just going to echo that and and mention one more So I'm really proud of that that national final round episode. Um I have said before on the show I think Amta's decision to try to sweep that episode on on the rug under The rug is one of the dumbest things that they've done. Um, it's a really good trial. 01:03:13.46 Drew Cares but to me it's it's really important and I to me I will always it always will have a special place for me. It's something that we will always do every year without fail because we both find it to be so important. Um, my favorite just one off episode has got to be the yale um. 01:03:22.54 bengarmoe And like 80% of it is just good mock trial and then yeah you know there's some stuff that not everybody loves but like it's a really good round. It's a high quality round between 2 elite programs and I understand it produced this whole scandal. Whatever but our podcast episode should not be. 01:03:32.39 Drew Rhodes final round ah of the national championship I think that you know Ben you did a really cool job with some of the editing things that you did on that but having Ian Lampert on getting his perspective on the round. Um I just think it was a really cool conversation talking about something that frankly doesn't get talked about enough I think. 01:03:38.44 bengarmoe The definitive place for people to go to learn about that episode. They should be able to watch the video um that episode just to give a little bit of inside. Baseball is far and away the the most highly downloaded episode in our ah podcast history. It's you know. 01:03:51.44 Drew Um, which is kind of I mean he does get talked about a lot. But I think it's kind of gotten pushed under the rug. Um, but I think it's important to to remember that and I think that in many ways Our podcast episode is for the most part the only written or video record that still exists of what has happened So I think it's really cool that we have that and I I will always. 01:03:55.30 bengarmoe I'm pulling up the numbers here just out of curiosity. But it's been downloaded thousands and thousands of thousands of times not infrequently like during the summer when we're not releasing as often or releasing less heard episodes like that will be the most downloaded episode on a particular month even though it's you know now several years old. So I'm very proud of that episode I went back and listened to it not that long ago and I think it's aged well I think we did a really nice job of of breaking down those issues but it's just silly to me how hard it is to find that episode. Um, even though. Ah occasionally it popped up on less reputable websites. Um. 01:04:12.14 Drew It'll always have a special place for me. 01:04:30.20 bengarmoe I don't know if people know that reference but you know what I'm just going to say this because there's a little bit of a looser episode. Um the rumor that has been fed to me at 1 point or another is that ah amat at one point had to file to get that removed from an adult website. Um and that just cracks me up. It's just like 1 of my favorite facts. 01:04:44.75 Jordan But what. 01:04:46.37 Thomas Are you serious. 01:04:49.47 bengarmoe I am actually being serious um that there's an adult video hosting website I'm not going to say a name that the video someone posted that the 2019 national final round on and maybe we'll cut this later. Maybe we won't but that is just one of my favorite amta facts of all time. 01:04:56.55 Drew And. 01:05:05.48 Thomas Who found that that it must be the best story ever. Ah you know I was just I don't know I Just so happened come across. 01:05:14.98 bengarmoe Um I was walking through the woods and I oh God Well um, but setting that aside my other favorite episode and this is just me being a little bit selfish here. Um. 01:05:21.16 Thomas Right. 01:05:30.39 bengarmoe Is the episode we recorded after you Nbc won the national championship. We recorded that pretty quickly it was in like 48 hours of the of the final and it's like a really nice time capsule for me I can still hear the exhaustion and kind of like just like wonder in my voice that like that this is a thing that happened you know at the time we recorded it like the. Kalkins hadn't even made its way here yet and so like having that episode is like a permanent reminder of how I felt in that time is like a really special thing for me. So really proud of that episode. But there's like 10 other ones that I could list I think that we've had a lot of really cool episodes over the year and Drew I totally agree with you. 01:05:56.75 Drew It's true. It's true. It's so funny. It's so funny. 01:06:02.92 Drew If you. 01:06:09.89 Drew No, it has to stay. 01:06:09.91 bengarmoe I think the board meeting episodes provide ah provide access to something that's hard for people to access. So I really like those 2 01:06:19.14 Drew Um, what what search terms did you need to to do like oh my God right. 01:06:26.80 bengarmoe So Nick. 01:06:32.40 Drew Um, though it's so good. 01:06:37.28 bengarmoe Oh yeah. 01:06:44.51 Drew Um. 01:07:10.90 Drew True. 01:07:12.96 Jordan Yeah, well so it's so clear that both of you have done so much with this podcast I still every time I like judge at a tournament and somebody hears I'm from Haverford the first question I get asked is somebody says do you know Drew Evans like I listen to his podcast and I was like oh funny I do actually know Drew Evans ah but 01:07:24.77 Drew And to like in the shortest way possible mention 1 another I think that the very first episode where we had competitors on with Danny and um Nick Ramos wow yeah ah but no I mean Danny and Nick were both. 01:07:30.27 Jordan I'm just so curious like if you could pick anyone you could have anyone on this podcast who would be your ideal person for a future episode. 01:07:40.45 Drew You know we did the 2 national champions and it was such a fun episode and honestly it got our viewership up so much. Um I think that people were like whoa I mean they got these really you know, cool people to come on the podcast and I remember it was the first time for me when I was like wow like I very much so looked up to both of them. 01:07:42.97 bengarmoe Ah sure you know I've thought about this question a lot. So I think there's kind of an easy answer and then a little bit more nuanced answer so the easy answer for me is Brandon Harper um we we and and this is not meant to be a shot at Brandon whatsoever. He's a. 01:07:59.59 Drew And thought of them as as the I mean they were the top competitors in the country and to the fact that I kind of messaged both them was like hey would you be willing to do this and they're like yeah sure and I was like whoa. Okay I guess this is happening. Um I think that while. 01:07:59.73 bengarmoe Great guy and has been nothing but kind to me. Um, but we tried while he was president to have him on and just through a a variety of factors related to scheduling and and other things just never materialized I would still really like to talk to him. He was president at just an enormously challenging time when you think about the you know that. 01:08:13.41 Drew Our podcast has come a long way from there I think that there's a special place where that episode holds for me too. 01:08:19.37 bengarmoe Aftermath of the the twenty Nineteen final round scandal and then you know he was president for basically the covid years and just having to navigate that and just having enormous pressure put on him at a really difficult time. Um I also would be interested in having a conversation about his place in amta history. Um, you know as our first. 01:08:29.95 Drew Yes. 01:08:39.14 bengarmoe Black President I think that he played a really really important role in terms of being visual to our diverse community. Ah, and I just think he's a really smart and interesting guy and so he's someone that I would really like to talk to um and then in terms of like ah like ideal guests. We've already talked about the national final round. 01:08:46.95 Drew Ben you want to go first. 01:08:58.40 bengarmoe Um, from 2019 it's my dream that maybe in a couple years that enough time will have passed that some of the people who are involved in that round will feel ready to talk about it because that's something that I just would be interested in doing um and just maybe looking back on that season. Um, and then just to to briefly. 01:09:03.40 Drew Um, and. 01:09:16.44 bengarmoe Answer not exactly what you asked Jordan but an episode that I really want to do that Drew and I have talked about before I think a lot about 2020 nationals. Um, and just how absolutely loaded 7 or 8 teams were heading into that nationals and I would love. Get together a couple of people who maybe would have competed at that nationals and talk just about who we think would have won because when you think about the level of talent that was present and the teams that were just clicking on all cylinders heading into that nationals I think it would have been one for the ages and it's such a bummer that it didn't happen. So. Those are a couple people and episodes that that I'd love to get to do. 01:10:29.10 Drew Um. 01:10:56.32 bengarmoe Tan Peel kit 01:10:59.97 Thomas Quite a few kids from uva drew. 01:11:02.25 Drew I'm going to be a little bit briefer because I know this is going long. Um I have watched the twenty sixteen yale final round twenty yale versus uva found around more times than I care to admit I use it as a teaching tool all the time I don't I've met Daniel Stern before 01:11:06.85 bengarmoe Dennis Dennis tune sheli no we've never had Dennis on the show. 01:11:08.68 Thomas Um, ah. 01:11:19.16 Drew Um, he's a very nice guy I know that he's worked with you guys Ben as well. Um I think like having Raymond on or any of the witnesses. Um, literally anyone I think from that round at hell Allie ps empty would be really cool. Um. Just to me they are what made mock trial what it was and I think any of them talking about that round would be really really fun for me. Um I just have always looked up to to all of them so we actually did get a chance to chat? Um, a little bit ah with I just think that literally any of them from that round I know a lot of them I should mention that I also have spoken with Dennis Tncelli a few times. Um, but you know whether it's the uva side the yale side. They're all fantastic and I would love to interview 1 of them. 01:11:40.23 Thomas Okay, so we've had ah, we've been talking for about an hour and some change now folks. So I think the the viewers are interested. What's next where do we where do we see the podcast going on. It's been 75 episodes what's going to happen in the next 75 episodes 01:12:49.54 bengarmoe Yeah, this is such a tough question because I think in many ways the answer is keep doing what we're doing right? like we love the board meeting episodes. We love getting to talk to the national champions. We love breaking down Regionals Orcs and nationals those are consistently the episodes that people tune in the most because they're. 01:13:07.10 Drew Oh my gosh are we gonna do 75 more of these oh god um I right? I mean I will say for my part. Um I'm excited for us to do our more regular like kind of trying to get a biweekly thing going. Um I really do. 01:13:09.17 bengarmoe Understandably, right? listening to hear their their name and hear their program discussed and occasionally when they don't they tweet angry things at us. Um or leave us ah grumpy Apple Itunes reviews every so often which is fine Totally people's progative. But I think for me I want to keep doing a lot of that and then. 01:13:24.37 Drew Want to see the podcast continue to grow as a community and then I know Ben and I we talk all the time about different ideas of of things that we want to try doing. Um I know we've we've tossed around the idea of of you know, turning this into more of like ah I don't know like ah a a parent. 01:13:27.92 bengarmoe I Really like talking about serious topics I really liked having open honest conversations about how amta needs to get better and I don't mean that at the governing body I mean ah like just the community as a whole. So I really want to keep tackling those subjects I want to talk about some of the things. 01:13:42.36 Drew Podcast that has other little ones below it if if people were interested in in doing more regional focused things I think we would love to to help facilitate that um, but yeah I mean Ben I think that you're you're oftentimes more of the idea man on this. But what's your vision. 01:13:42.67 bengarmoe Some of the ways in which this community can be harmful. Some of the ways in which we can get better and then I totally agree with what Drew said. Um we at one point discussed the possibility of like advertising if someone is out there and wanted to start their own college mock trial podcast like kind of helping them produce it for the first couple episodes. We never like formally advertised that but that's still something that I think would be cool and maybe we'll revisit that at some point in the future because now both Drew and I you know when we started this I was a younger coach sorry when we started this I was a younger coach. And Drew was still competitor now we're both several years out of of competing you know me more than Drew but still and so having you know another podcast that was current competitors would be a really cool thing and I think you know could be a neat opportunity. So I think there's a lot of ways that the podcast can grow from here. 01:14:21.31 Drew Then. 01:14:52.39 bengarmoe Well I think that pretty much brings us to the end of this conversation. It's been a very interesting one I hope that that people out there have enjoyed hearing a little bit of behind the scenes. So as we wrap up. Um Jordan I guess I'll start with you. Thank you so much for coming on the show. It was really good to chat with you and thanks for. Helping us out as we flip things around and and got a chance to talk about what we do so. 01:15:10.10 Drew Um. 01:15:11.70 Jordan Yeah, thank you for having me. It's been so fun. This is my first podcast experience. So it's definitely set the bar high. 01:15:20.73 bengarmoe Well, we we do our best we like think we we run an okay ship around here and and Thomas same to you. It was really great to have you on the show I know that this isn't your first ah mock trial podcasty type experience. But I promised you I'd get you out eventually and I did so thanks for coming on. 01:15:28.45 Drew Um. 01:15:36.50 Thomas And it was a wonderful experience. Thank you both! Thank you Jordan um, what a special episode number 75 thanks for having me. 01:15:37.63 Jordan And. 01:15:39.25 Drew Yeah, the initial pitch of the podcast was oh, it's cool to have a current competitor and a coach talking. We never really plan for the oh eventually Drew will graduate and then it'll just be these 2 random people talking. But um, yeah, it just shows how short-sighted. We may have been. 01:15:45.77 bengarmoe Well, it's a real pleasure and as we go we do want to thank our gold patrons. We we love our Patreon community it continues to grow every day and we just hope that more people will consider joining our Patreon and our discord because we're really grateful to everyone who's in that community but especially. 01:15:57.10 Drew Beginning But how far it's gone. Um, yeah. 01:16:03.24 bengarmoe To each of our $5 gold patrons for everything they do to make this possible drew anything else. We've talked about a lot of stuff today anything else as we wrap up that that you think we've missed. 01:17:20.72 Drew Nope I think we've covered everything and now no one ever needs to hear from us ever again. 01:16:16.45 bengarmoe Well, we'll be be back in your feeds very soon with an episode that's going to talk about the actual broader mock trial community but until we get to that point. Thanks as always for listening. It is a pleasure to be with all of you until then this has been the mock review with Ben and Jordan.