Adam Torres and Kirk Hoffman discuss ASU football.
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Show Notes:
Listen to this episode recorded on site at an Arizona State University football game. In this episode, Adam Torres interviews Kirk Hoffman, discuss Arizona State University football and the tailgating experience.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and if you’d like to apply to be a guest on the show, just head on over to MissionMatters. com and click on Be Our Guest to Apply. All right. So today I am in Phoenix, Arizona. Let me tell you, it is hot. 100 plus degrees.
I’m at the ASU tailgate in Tempe, Arizona. Oh my gosh. And today I have Kirk on the show. Let me tell you, legendary, super fan. The person that took me to my very first tailgate out here. I got heat stroke. Wait a minute. I’ll tell the backstory in a moment, but Kirk, welcome to the show, man. It’s good to see you.
Thanks Adam. Yeah. It’s nice to see you again. All right. So first time, Kirk, and I don’t know if you know this story, but the first time I came to a tailgate with you was maybe 15 plus years ago, heat stroke. I remember coming out of the car and people were like, man, maybe Adam’s had one too many spiked waters.
And I’m like, what do you mean? I haven’t, I’m not even had it. I haven’t had any water today, which was the mistake. So for you, first question, Kirk, how long is it? Do you think you’ve been coming to tailgates and you’ve been a fan? It’s been about 25 years. , what got you into it first?
Actually my commercial broker got me into it, had season tickets here. And asked me to come out for a game. So I came out for a game. Asked me to come out for another game. Came out for another game. Said, do you want to do season tickets? I said, yeah. Are you kidding me? Now, this year was a pretty big pivotal year.
Was it this year or last year? But I know you were the grill master. For many, many years. And then, what happened? Talk to me, man. I retired and I passed off the golden the golden spatula to Matt Cook. Yeah. Host of pool golf podcast. That’s the same guy. How long, you know, Matt? Oh boy. I’ve known Matt for , 20 years.
How’d you guys first meet? We met at a tailgate here. No way, hold on, is that the story? That is the story. You guys met at a tailgate? Yes I did. And it was just like, love at first sight? That’s what it was, are you kidding? You ever seen Matt? Of course it’s love at a good looking guy. He is. I was all over that.
Nah, just kidding. That’s awesome though, but you met him at a tailgate. No way. And then, what, like struck a friendship after that? Struck a friendship. He kept coming. We kept coming. And then, you know, of course, until he, he moved to to New York and then and then he came back and we kind of started where we left off.
Yeah. That’s awesome, man. So absolutely. Just like you, Adam. Come on, man. Hey, thank you. I’ll pay you later for that one. More testimonials. There you go. Okay. It’s good. It’s good. So what keeps you coming back to the games? What, what keeps you fired up? What keeps you like year after year being, having these amazing seats you have having this just for everybody listening.
You can’t picture this. Like years ago, I remember when I got my heat stroke, we were in the middle of this like field and parking lot. Now Kirk’s tailgates insane. We’re under these like solar panels. Like we got a swamp cooler out there playing cornhole. Like you got kind of fancy on me, Kirk. Like what keeps you coming back?
Well, you know, it’s every year it’s the hope of the year. And unfortunately in the many years last Four years. , it’s been tough. This hope’s really what all we’ve had. But this year, again, they win the big game last week. Slaughtered the team that we played, Wyoming.
And so it gets you back to another game and everybody’s happy right now. We’ll see how that goes in about three weeks. Three hours, but right now we’re riding that wave. What are you hoping for, for today, man? What are you hoping for? If you got your little, I’m hoping for a big win. Yeah. Big win. Yeah, because one thing we, we’ve lacked , in the past couple years, past few years has been consistency.
So we’ll start off huge and then take a nose dive. So yeah, it’s and that’s to say the least. Come on, man. . It’s, been that way. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s been that way. Yeah. Yeah. So I saw the cornhole skills over there. Talk to me about that, man. I saw that what was going on in the game of cornhole for everybody watching this around the world.
If you don’t know what cornhole is, how am I going to describe this picture? These two long boards with holes in them. And you throw these little bean back terrible description. So if you don’t know, Google it, cornhole, just got to watch out. You might get some cornhole hits that are not what you want.
This is put cornhole and tailgating. There you go. And you might get the right stuff. Otherwise a whole different universe But anyway, I’m sorry. I don’t know Should I ask what kind of what you know? Yeah, so So yeah, no, it’s a great tailgate game You know used to be that we would have in fact, in fact, Matt Cook had Brought out the first beer pong table that I’ve had that I ever seen.
Stop. Yep. That’s, that’s legendary, really. And yeah. And, and now they won’t let allow us to do that anymore here. Mm. But there used to be, , it’s tame now, but there used to be beer bongs. You’d have Octa bongs. Yeah. Can I say this on your show? Yes, you can. Octa Bongs where eight people , and then it’s the first person that drinks the, the beer that’s in the, in the bong.
Yeah. Wins. I don’t know what they win. I think they win like. Bragging rights or drunkenness quicker than anybody else. But yeah, , so the things have changed. Now we have, like, for instance, I’m going to go back to Matt Cook again. , , he’s got a TV that he brought for the tailgate so we can watch other games.
The unique thing about this is you used to have to have a setup that included a generator and all this gas and, and everything else to run this. He’s got one that. Rechargeable, that has a three hour charge on it. So basically our tailgates are you know, three hours, roughly three to four hours.
So you can watch the whole game. So as you’re talking about your different types of containers, I’m thinking about my college days at Michigan state and we had the ice luges. Now an ice luge. Probably wouldn’t work in Arizona. It would work for about 15 minutes. You’re like, you bring this big ol huge ice sculpture.
You can’t even get it there, but we were, you know, football is cold. Yeah. So you’re outside on the tennis courts and things like that. We’d have these huge ice luges like on TV. Obviously, none of that’s around for the kids listening to this. Yeah, don’t worry about it. You don’t need them. Ice luges are bad.
Right. Well, if you’re sliding down one, it’s good, but if you’re drinking on one, that’s not so good. Oh man, that’s awesome. Well, hey Kirk, I know you got to get back to the tailgate, you know, you got to do your thing. Thanks for coming on, really appreciate you. If anybody wants to follow you on social media or otherwise, I don’t know, website, how do people follow you, man?
Where are you at nowadays? That’s a good question. I Are you incog? Are you incognito? Come on, man. I’m kind of incognito. You could, you could find me on Kirk’s Sports Grill. Yeah. On Facebook. Yeah. So it’s Kirk’s Sports Grill. And yeah, that’s, that’s probably the best way to do it.
Awesome. Appreciate that. Sorry I’m a little older than than you, Adam, so I don’t have all the young Come on man. I’m not like Matt. He’s got the stuff. I don’t have the stuff, whatever. Tell me what to get to. Well, well, appreciate you Kirk, and for everybody listening, just so you know, we’ll put the links to that and the show notes so you can just click on the link and head right on over.
And. Speaking of the audience, if this is your first time with Mission Matters and you haven’t hit that subscribe or follow button yet, make sure you do that. This is a daily show each and every day. We’re putting out new content, new material, and hopefully new inspiration to help you along the way on your journey as well.
Kirk, man, appreciate all you know. Thank you. Been a pleasure.