Such a fascinating story because in some ways, when we think of Athens in antiquity, and especially Athens in late antiquity, we have to imagine that this is maybe something like Harvard or Oxford, where the ruling class comes in and out of those schools with some regularity. So if you are the emperor Julian, for example, you study the Athens under some of these teachers and you know these people. And these people know that they know you and know that they have access to the kinds of things that you can provide as a leader in that society. And so this point of access gives them a certain arrogance, sense of they are owed, respect, that maybe in some ways they're not. So I think that we can, if we look now in the United States at say the way that Harvard professors bounce in and out of government and have connections that are formal and informal to the people running the government, we have to imagine that Athenian teachers were in a similar situation. Athens very much was like the Cambridge, Cambridge, Massachusetts or Oxford of the ancient world. Dr. Watts, thank you for joining me. Thank you. How are you doing? Great, great today, how are you? I'm doing fantastic. This interview, I'd like to focus on your book, City and School and Antiquity. I know you focus on Alexandria and Athens, but for the sake of narrowing our discussion, I would like to discuss the case study of Athens for this period of time. So for my audience that was unfamiliar with the concept of Pidea, could you perhaps give a brief summary? Sure, so the word Pidea means just simply education or learning, but in antiquity, this becomes a kind of defining structure or defining set of attributes for people who belong to an educated elite. And so it becomes a way to differentiate people of certain backgrounds and particularly people of privileged and educated backgrounds from people who don't possess that same kind of training. And so there are different ways that people with people who have gone through the educational process and acquired this kind of status of being educated manifest this. So it comes through in the way that they dress sometimes, it comes through in the way that they speak, it comes through in the way that they are supposed to behave. And so someone who is trying to display this will do things like throw in literary references in the way that we sometimes throw in pop culture references. You can display that you have read a lot of Marvel comics by throwing in references to Molten Man and the Prowler and people will get to you. It'll get that that's where you're coming from. The same was true. Those are the deep cuts, huh? Right, if you're throwing in quotes from Homer into your daily conversations or you're throwing in kind of jokes from Aristophanes, it shows that you possess a kind of cultural background that marks you as distinctive. And the people who claimed this background also expected it to be recognized and they expected certain privileges that come from it. So for example, if you were educated in late antiquity, you could expect that, for example, governor would not physically violate you.  But then that also manifested in the way you were supposed to behave. So someone who was educated was not supposed to show anger. They were not supposed to yell and scream. They were not supposed to hit or abuse people. They also were supposed to show a level of maturity, calmness, and I suppose you could say like temperance or prudence in the way that they behaved with other people. And so it was a sort of two-way street where you had this training and you acquired a kind of ticket that got you into the country club set of the Roman Empire. But in return, you needed to mind your manners and behave in a way that was respectful of the privileges that you were being given. But the entry to all of this was elite rhetorical and literary education. Fascinating. I wanted to, when you were discussing what Paideia was, something that struck me were two examples that I remember quite clearly from my recent studies. One is Karritan. Karritan is using Homer. He's using all these different kinds of allusions to the Iliad the Odyssey, to Plato. You know, Achilles Taitius is doing the same thing with Lukepea and Clotifon. Also, I think the best example for me is one of my favorites, Lucian. Lucian, when he's doing a true story, he emphasizes that I'm writing for a certain group and I would tell you what all these references mean, but I expect you to understand what I'm talking about. It's like the antique version of the Easter egg nowadays. Exactly. Yeah, I think that that's, if we wanted to think about this in a modern context, I think that's actually a great way to do it, to think about the Easter eggs and Marvel movies, where if you are familiar with the canon, you see all of these things. And you notice all of the interactions and what we would call intertexts, where a Spider-Man movie will have something that references Dr. Strange, which will have something that references Winter Soldier, which will have something that references Black Widow. And if you know all of these things, then you know all of the references and you appreciate all of the levels on which the conversation is proceeding in that particular work of art. And in antiquity, it was a similar thing. You were expected to write in a way where you're embedding these references in whatever it is that you're putting together so that there was added depth and nuance to what you were writing. And sometimes you look at some of the, I guess one of my friends calls these literary games, where really, really deeply educated people do things like recompose the Bible using snippets taken from Homer, or they do things like put together prose and meter and Greek and Latin and make it into this sort of pastiche that blends Latin authors, Greek authors, famous Latin texts, famous Greek texts, and puts it all together in something that is totally incomprehensible if you don't have the training to appreciate what the author is trying to do. But if you do have that training, there is incredible depth to this because they're taking you on a journey through a thousand years of literature and they're bringing you into and out of different sort of images that authors have developed over that time period. And when you read the work, if you read the work with this educational background to fully understand what they're doing, the wealth of illusion, the wealth of image, the wealth of themes expands dramatically. And the work goes from something that looks pretty incomprehensible to somebody who doesn't know any of this, to something that is rich and beautiful. And it's what Michael Roberts calls the Jewel style, where all of these little sort of trinkets are embedded to make the work shine in a particularly fascinating and dramatic way. But you have to know what these trinkets are and you have to know where they're coming from and you have to have the training to be able to appreciate exactly what's going on there because the short reference will, to you, open up a world in that bigger text that allows you then to appreciate the text that's being composed. Thank you for that. So the characters in your book, they're very colorful. We're introduced to a very interesting cast to say the least. You have teachers of rhetoric, of philosophy, you have somebody like Herodes, Atticus, Pro-Hiresias, Procholus among them. And you also emphasize not only the eccentricities of these figures and how they blended into social life and how important they were. You also make a point to discuss some of the social and economic factors that went into creating the situation where these teachers of rhetoric and philosophy were so prominent in the society at the time. So if you could kind of talk about what were some of the social and economic factors that led to the rise to prominence of the Athenian teachers of rhetoric and philosophy at the time. Yeah, I think that that's, it's such a fascinating story because in some ways, when we think of Athens in antiquity and especially Athens in late antiquity, we have to imagine that this is maybe something like Harvard or Oxford where the ruling class comes in and out of those schools with some regularity. So if you are the emperor Julian, for example, you study the Athens under some of these teachers and you know these people and these people know that they know you and know that they have access to the kinds of things that you can provide as a leader in that society. And so this point of access gives them a certain arrogance and a certain sense of, a certain sense that they are owed respect that maybe in some ways they're not. So I think that we can, if we look now in the United States at say the way that Harvard professors bounce in and out of government and have connections that are formal and informal to the people running the government, we have to imagine that Athenian teachers were in a similar situation. Athens very much was like the Cambridge, Cambridge, Massachusetts or Oxford of the ancient world. And it had that status going all the way back. I mean, it's a very much by late antiquity and inherited status that goes all the way back to the fifth century DC and Athens as the kind of school of history in the center of philosophical literary life in the Greek world. It's a status that Athens capitalized upon in the Roman period. They gave it a sort of prestige that made students want to go to Athens above all other places because this was the prestige destination. And the teachers who had the endowed chairs in Athens were the most prestigious in the entire Roman world. They weren't necessarily the best but they were the people who had the titles that mattered the most. And so sometimes this would create peculiar dynamics and rivalries where Athenian teachers couldn't quite measure up to the achievements of people in other places. We see this in particular in the second century where there are really spectacular rhetoricians working in Asia Minor or better than the Athenians of that time. And yet at the same time you see the Athenians try to sort of lord their cultural capital over these people in Asia Minor and claim that the status of being a teacher in Athens supersedes anything that these other people might have achieved. And therefore you should respect an Athenian teacher even though in terms of competence and performance the Athenian teacher perhaps doesn't measure up to someone like Eleus Aristides who's working across the Aegean in Asia Minor. We see something similar actually in the fourth century where Hypatia, a teacher in Alexandria her student Zinesias comes to Athens and says this place is terrible. My teacher is so much better than anything that you guys have. But he's arguing against a reputation and he sort of acknowledges, I probably won't win this. It's very hard for me to take the failings of Athens in the contemporary context and convince people that Alexandria superseded Athens. I'm gonna try, but it's really hard for me to argue against the reputational capital that Athens has accumulated. Right, and you mentioned other economic factors and factors such as the Herylian invasion creating a kind of issue with the other kind of elite agricultural ruling classes and they were kind of in a depressed state and that kind of created a situation where some of these teachers were untouchable. And Athens seemed to be, yeah, that Athens is kind of coasting on this cultural kind of capital, if you will. At the time it's like a cultural coinet that Athens is synonymous with this, but maybe by this time, like you're saying, it's not as prominent as it once was during the time of, say, a Plato and Aristotle. So yeah, that's fascinating. Thank you for that answer. Yeah, I think that if you look at it, the story of Athens in the Roman period is a general erosion from a city that was a real city when the Romans first sort of dominated Athens in the second century BC. Athens is a real place, it has a real economy, it does real things. By the later fourth century AD, it's an educational center, it's a college town. The industry has kind of hollowed out. The ruling classes that are not involved in education really don't do much, and the really economic driver of the city has become education, and the city has shrunk. It's probably a 15,000-person city in late antiquity, so it really, really is a college town, and that means that there is an oversized influence by these people who are the only world-class things in Athens anymore, and young people, everybody knows it. Absolutely, so speaking of that cultural koiné and that reputation Athens has for attracting students, now this is very hard for us to imagine audience, but at this time, from the second to the fourth century, Athenean teachers seem to be almost like have a cartel going in terms of getting students. Teachers, like you have a really good example in your book, a city in school of pro-hyresis. He's pro-hyresis. He's having his Hattairoi kidnap students right off the boat. It was like a normal thing. They had this thing going with people just getting right into town on those boats, and I just found that bizarre, but also strangely odd. Like human trafficking in all senses seems to have just been rampant in all its shapes and forms and antiquity, something we all have to deal with when we look at this stuff with a neutral eye, but so I don't know if you could kind of explain what who the Hattairoi were, what role did they play in a teacher's inner circle? Yeah, so in antiquity there were two kind of statuses. Among teachers, actually maybe three if you want to sort of chart this the whole way across, but I think if we were to think of this in modern terms, teachers had a status as a kind of full professor. That's if you ran the school, you were the full professor. You might have assistants who were maybe teaching assistants who would do a lot of the teaching under you and were associated with you but could also leave and set up their own school if they wanted to at a certain point.  They associated with you and if they were asked they would say that they are part of your circle. These of you maybe graduate students and then or maybe even majors, like a history major. And then you had students who just paid to come to classes and that's the lowest ranking group in this hierarchy. The hearers, correct. Yeah, the hearers and that's what they paid to hear. And some people would pay to hear multiple teachers. They would pay a kind of base level tuition to hear the lectures at multiple schools. Some teachers were public teachers and they would give public lectures that were open to any students who wanted to come and so their hearers would maybe not pay them a fee at all. But the Hattiroy are people who are, they are sworn to be the devotees of this teacher. And so they have a much more formal relationship with the teacher than the more casual listeners who come in and listen to lectures and maybe occasionally give give declamations and get graded on it. The Hattiroy belong in a circle with this teacher. And so instead of just coming to class and listening, they have special meetings in the teacher's house. They have seminars, they have much more personalized instructions and they pay more. But they are with the school for a much longer period of time. I mean, a casual listener can take a course for a year and leave, many of them are done in three years. And so they are maybe at the level of an undergraduate, maybe at the level of a kind of lower division of an undergraduate student. But the Hattiroy are really invested in the success of the circle in the way that a listener is not. And so when we're talking about the situation with Pro-Recius, Pro-Recius had a group of Hattiroy who would go and meet the boats that came in to Athens from certain regions. And the stories we're told are that they would effectively kidnap people who came off the boats from certain regions that were their regions. He was from Armenia, and so he got Armenia plus Asia Minor and a couple of other places, Egypt as well. And when people from those regions showed up, his Hattiroy would come to the port and escort the students to the school. In many cases, those students already intended to study under Pro-Recius. And so this is just like a welcoming group at freshman orientation day. In other cases though, it doesn't seem like they wanted to. And so the escorting to the school was a little bit more violent. There was also really extreme hazing that would go on. And so students would be locked away and they would then have a formal ritual procession to a bathhouse in Athens where they would be blindfolded and they would be threatened and assaulted, some say gently, some say not gently at all. And then when they finally agreed to join the school, they would then be welcomed as members of the scholastic environment. You're right that it looks to us like this was terrible. And I think we have some students who say it was terrible. Labanius, who is a very famous fourth century rhetorician, got hooked up with the teacher, a teacher he didn't wanna study with in Athens because of this. But other people were actually apparently totally fine with this. They understood it was pageantry. They had already intended to study under Proaresius or whoever it was who abducted them. And so this was a kind of pageantry that symbolized their incorporation into a community that they already wanted to join. And so for them, this was, I think Gregory Nazienz and says this is, it's a lot of show, but it's not a lot of danger. And most people understood that. Some people didn't. But it did create the potential for really serious misunderstandings, but also the fact that this is a, you're swearing to join a community. It means that if you cross the teacher or you cross the teacher students, you have a problem. Because you've gone back on something that you swore to do. You've also gone back on membership in a group that really is supposed to be meaningful to you. It's supposed to be a kind of second family. And if you are not loyal to that second family, you can expect retaliation, sometimes physical, but certainly retaliation in the kinds of career prospects you'll have coming out of the school. Yeah, it's kind of like Apollaeus and his apology talking about the penalties for betraying the mystery, cult you're in or whatever. They're fascinating. We could do a whole show just for the students themselves. And I'd love to have you back to talk about that sometime. For sure. But for the sake of this video and for time, let us get to one more question. Overall, city and school really emphasizes that this is a period of time when the empire is shifting in terms of culture, in terms of what we would call today, religion. And as a result of that and the changes in the proclivities of the ruling elites and the emperors themselves, what were some of the results of the changes in policy, especially good examples like Constance and Julian versus how things have been done before in terms of Pidea and education. Yeah, I think one of the big things that we get in the fourth century is a realization by a people involved in this educational industry that all of a sudden people are attaching religious significance to what they're teaching. The courses, the texts, the exercises, all of the things that had been used traditionally to train people and make them educated Romans, there were religious aspects to it, but just simply because those were aspects of how life worked. So one of the exercises that students would do would be to chart their daily routine and it would include sacrificing to the gods in the morning and praying and just doing things that are normal things that you do. And all of a sudden in the fourth century, people started saying, well, wait a second, I mean, this is not what Christians are supposed to be doing. And so religious education became something that kind of presents in Pidea even though initially no one actually had thought of it that way. It was just kind of what you did. It was something that everybody did. Why wouldn't you think about sacrificing to the gods when everybody did it? All of a sudden these traditions, many of which were educational traditions that long predated Jesus, all of a sudden these become things with religious import and as you get into the middle part of the fourth century, people begin to question whether it's appropriate for them to be there anymore. And this leads in the early 360s to the Emperor Julian saying, not only should these things be there, but you should take them seriously. This religious content in the educational curriculum isn't something that's just there to teach you how to talk pretty. It's there to encourage you to behave in a specific way.  So he issues a law on that basis prohibiting Christians from teaching anything from the classical curriculum, unless they are going to actively advocate for the pagan gods in their teaching of that curriculum. And this is a non-starter for many Christians. They see this as a ban on Christians teaching and probably Julian intended it to be a ban on Christians teaching. But this insertion of religious protractic and religious conversion into an educational curriculum that had long not really been seen as particularly religious is something that is so toxic that Christians of course react to this, but pagans react against it too. Because what pagans see is that the empire is changing. There are people who are not pagan and they don't want this curriculum to become something that applies only to pagans. And so pagans and Christians both react strongly against this insertion of a kind of religious protractic into the educational curriculum in a way that forces the empire to go back from where Julian had put it. And the curriculum remains effectively, I suppose, non-denominational, non-sectarian, non-confessional into at least the later fifth and into the sixth century. And so the legacy of Julian is underlining the possibility that education could become something designed to make people pagans. And once he underlines that possibility, it becomes clear there is no consensus for this. There's not really much support for it. And it in a way, I think saves the general relevance of this curriculum for the better part of a century, century and a half. And so what Julian did was in the short-term extremely destructive to his own objectives. And in the long-term, I think probably in some ways almost conducive to creating a consensus that Paidea really does matter in building a non-denominational social class that is joined by a certain pursuit of learning and a certain way of behaving that doesn't have to do with whether they're Christian or pagan. It creates a kind of ruling class in the Roman Empire that can survive the religious changes of the fourth century without splintering because they still have a common conversation that both Christians and pagans can participate in. Absolutely. And that's something that you really mentioned and emphasized in the book and in your next book, The Final Pagan Generation, which we will touch upon in another interview that at this point since Paidea is a social glue, if you will, that holds these groups together, it leads whether they're Christian, whether they're pagan, regardless of what they believe, the most important thing is that they adhere to a common code that they adhere to certain values. And I just found that fascinating and we will touch upon that definitely in another interview. But Dr. Watts, thank you so much. This has been amazing. Where can people find you in your books? So you can find my books on Amazon. And then I have a YouTube channel called The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome that has some longer form discussions and material about Roman history from the beginning until really about the sixth century AD. Amazing, yes. I really, I peruse your channel quite often. So thank you so much for joining me. This has been an honor. Take care. Thank you. I'll talk to you soon.


Greetings friends! Welcome to CTUCC Conference Cast for January 30, 2015, the regular podcast of the Connecticut Conference of the United Church of Christ. Whoever you are and wherever you may be on life's journey at this very moment, you are welcome here. We begin this week's conference cast with this meditation from the Reverend Tamra Moreland, Northwest Central Regional Minister. In the first chapter of Mark's Gospel, Jesus comes to Galilee to proclaim his core message, the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God has come near, repent and believe in the good news. He sees four fishermen with their nets and boats, and he summons them to follow him and fish for people. And they do. Next week, many of us celebrated the official holiday for the late drum major for justice, the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. I attended an interfaith service at the historic faith congregational church, UCC in Hartford, and listened intently to the Reverend Verde Powers, Associate Conference Minister for the Illinois Conference, as she preached about unfinished business from the Civil Rights Era to Ferguson to New York and beyond. Her comments took me back to my own experiences growing up in Connecticut with parents transplanted from the South during the great African American migration. My family would gather around our black and white television and watch horrific and heroic news footage of blacks being beaten and fire hosed for seeking to live as human beings and equals in these United States. Our elders would interpret for us what was happening and share our own family stories and secrets from the segregated South to prepare us and to equip us for taking up the mantle and continuing the fight. We felt their passion and conviction and lived in the tension of the battle and the relative racial peace of the North. There weren't any marches happening here and opposition either real or imagined was chucked away behind well-meaning smiles, newly integrated neighborhoods, and a plethora of decent paying jobs for all, black and white. 2015 marks the 50th anniversary of the marches that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act of 1965. Civil rights leaders including Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., Amelia Boynton and John Lewis led hundreds of marches across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, Alabama. The marches knew what they were up against figuratively, racism and prejudice, and literally, cops, rioters, dogs and water cannons. But still they pressed on. They were determined to cross a bridge in every meaning of the word. The critically acclaimed movie Selma is educating a new generation of Americans about that historic time. Those who weren't a part of the 60s civil rights movement, who didn't learn the truth in any history class or history book, who didn't watch key events on a black and white television in their living room. Selma is also for those of us who have become complacent, tired and angry. It calls us to get busy because there is yet unfinished business to tend to. There is yet another bridge to cross and yet another hill to climb. There is yet another call to follow and yet another protest to march. There is yet another song to sing and yet another slogan to proclaim Black Lives Matter. Still a prayer for this week. Dear still speaking God, please help us to hear your call to follow you into places and spaces that are not comfortable, but that challenge and convict us. May your precious Holy Spirit empower us to trust in you as we handle your business. God's business. Amen. In the news this week, well frankly most of the news this week in Connecticut has been snow. There wasn't as much as forecast in western parts of the state and there was quite that much and more in eastern parts. It's always startling even to us natives how much variation there can be in the weather in what is after all a relatively small part of the world, but accumulations varied from less than six inches to close to two feet. Which gives us some leisure to think of a warmer place at a much hotter time. New Orleans, Louisiana, when the chill of winter did not match the heat of battle in January of 1815. For the story we turn to conference archivist John Van Epps with this edition of Touchstones with History. January is the 200th anniversary of the battle of New Orleans. In 1815 we took a little trip along with General Jackson down the mighty Mississippi. This was the last battle of the war of 1812 and yes we were there. Samuel Mills Jr. was one of the missionaries from our Missionary Society of Connecticut to the lower Mississippi Valley and in early 1815 he was in New Orleans. In his letters back here he says nothing about the battle. He does mention that the soldiers there needed French and English Bibles. He visits the Sikh soldiers both American and British and gives them Bibles. He reports on the polyglot character of New Orleans with many languages spoken and many denominations present, Catholic, Presbyterian and others with whom he had cordial relations. Mills cites the recent U.S. census stating that of the 25,000 residents there, about 40% were black. He reports that a Bible could not be found for sale or to give away in all New Orleans. His concern over the lack of Bibles in much of the South led into push for the establishment of a national Bible society. He returned North and was present in 1816 for the formation of the American Bible Society. You may remember Samuel Mills as being one of the students of the Hickstack Mission from 1809 who pledged their lives to foreign missions. Mills was considered the leader of the brethren. Perhaps because of his health he was deemed not suitable for foreign missionary work so he went out west and then south. After Mills returned from New Orleans he became a Presbyterian. He advocated for a united foreign mission society for the controversial idea of colonization of Africans and the start of an African school based on his concern for the quote elevation of black people in this country and the regeneration of Africa. This group was formed in 1817 along with the support of the evangelist Charles Finney. Mills sailed for West Africa in early 1818 seeking a good site for this school in what is now Liberia. He then returned from Africa with the desire to reunite with his friend Henry Obokaya for his return to Hawaii. However Mills died at sea at the age of 35. So in those brief years Samuel Mills Jr went from Torrington to the Haystack meeting to seminary to the west and the south including New Orleans then to New York and out to Africa with the hope of going to Hawaii all on behalf of the wider missions of our churches. For all the current headlines visit us at ctucc.org slash news. Learn about the human costs of the war on drugs at a screening of The House I Live In with a discussion time to follow on January 31st in East Hadam. Clergy women are invited to a special retreat day to refresh themselves with soul food for the journey on February 3rd in Glastonbury. There are still openings in this year's confirmation retreats in February and March. Sign your group up soon while there is a space for you. Get ready for summer with a workshop called Unpacking Vacation Bible School on February 7th in West Hartford. The Stepping Stones Workshop Team Building with Youth Groups and Adults 2 will be February 10th in Cheshire with another Stepping Stones event on Church Asset Mapping for Faith Formation on February 26th in Milford. The Stepping Stones Workshop Radical Hospitality with Youth will be March 9th in South Glastonbury and you can learn more about all the upcoming Stepping Stones workshops at ctucc.org slash Stepping Stones. Clergy and laypeople have a unique opportunity to learn about the ethics of ministry and church life with the UCC's General Counsel Don Clark including a performance of Clergy Ethics the Musical the weekend of March 13th in Southington and Middlefield. Young people have an opportunity to prepare to be a counselor in training at Silver Lake with a weekend conference March 13th through 15th. Registration is open for Super Saturday. This day of workshops features keynote speaker the Reverend Ruben Duran who promotes new church development for the even juggle Lutheran church in America. This joint venture with the Massachusetts Conference will be held March 21st in Ludlow, Massachusetts. The women's yoga and spirit retreat is at Silver Lake March 27th through the 29th as is the Maple Sugaring weekend. Stewardship in the Changing Church moving from consumerism to generosity is the theme of this year's ecumenical stewardship event on April 17th and 18th in Boxborough, Massachusetts. To learn more about these events or to register visit us at ctucc.org slash events. Our spirited Wednesday thought comes from your podcast host the Reverend Eric Anderson as I considered Jesus casting out of unclean spirits even as I was enduring a cold this week the world is filled with forces that have the power to invade us to reconfigure us to move us to act contrary to our best selves things such as viruses addictions the scourge of racism human selfishness and pride would that it were as simple as commanding them to go it isn't and yet it is the first required step to banish them all is to choose to banish them the silent unclean spirits and come out and that brings this conference cast to a close thanks to Tamara Moorland for her reflection and to GarageBand for our music primary funding for conference cast comes from your congregation's gifts to our church's wider mission basic support changing lives to the united church of christ this is Eric Anderson the associate conference minister for proclamation identity and communication for the Connecticut conference of the united church of christ praying that your days this week may be filled with the presence the guidance and the grace of god


Such a focus on third downs throughout training camp, pre-season.  Yeah, man. I mean, obviously early in the game at 36 in the red zone, Kyler got out and found his way in the back of the end zone. They connected, tough one there. The other ones, I can remember, I felt like we challenged for the most part and we're in position. I felt like they made some plays, good throws, good catches. Hopefully we can find ways to make a few more of those plays instead of them. I think a couple of those things showed up at times. The third and long scramble, he got away. We lost our guy in the back end. We didn't stay with our guy on the scramble. He ended up finding him there. So for the most part, I felt like we were close. I felt like we were able to get some pressure by the scrambles and then making some good plays on us when I felt like KB was tight, right? KB was tight. I think those things kind of showed up in the stats. On the second and five touchdown to Hopkins, it seems like the kind of play we've been talking about all-creasing. You sent six. Every DB is behind six and off. Byers eight yards away from Hopkins when he touches the ball. That's the kind of play you said, you're going to challenge, you're going to challenge, you're going to challenge. Yeah, that was the empty one in the high red. Yeah, I think when we game plan and we try to do some things, especially in regards to some of the empty formations, like it's a fine line between, do you show your hand or do you try to disguise with some other things we've been playing the empty throughout the game, right? Ideally, when you blitz zero, you want to be able to be tight. Hopefully, if they throw that one, we can come up and get it on the ground. But I think there's a fine line between always being there and showing your hand and then having the ability to also complement that look and do some different things. And I mean, second and five, I think that's a lot different than third and five, in my opinion, too, you know what I'm saying? And I think as it relates to the call, too, as that makes sense, Paul. But it was one of those scenarios. We were off, we weren't really up in the line of scrimmage. We weren't really showing blitz zero out the jump, right? And then they ended up side adjusting, made a quick throw. We didn't get our hands up. And then we missed the tackle.  And then Hopkins made a play, right? Made a miss. Callans this week in some way similar to quarterback and maybe how is it maybe even greater with the veteran in Wilson? Yeah, I think there's similarities in their skill set. I mean, obviously, Russell's done it at a high level for a really long time, right? He had a great week last week, I think close to 80% throwing the ball. Again, played a lot of football has seen it all from anything we're going to throw at him defensively. I think the biggest thing for us, man, we got to continue to find ways to affect the quarterback and we got to continue to find ways to stay tight, right? And it's that fine line being able to complement each other and do those things. But it is going to be a big challenge for us, especially with those guys they got in the perimeter as well. But looking forward to the opportunity to get back out there and kind of see where it goes. SS, but DePri's play this past Sunday. Is that, speaking of fine lines, tough sometimes when you've got a guy coming off of an ACL, first game action in a while? Yeah, absolutely I do. I think first time really getting into it where it's 100% full go to the ground, the whole shebang, I do think it's a little, there's an adjustment period, right? But I think he'll keep improving. I think him getting more comfortable with what we're doing defensively right in his role and the style. And I mean, it's tough too, man. You're dealing with a Kyler Murray type player. So that kind of plays into it a little bit schematically and just individually. I think that is in their mind a little bit too. But I do hope to see improvement as this thing goes and he gets more adjusted to actually getting back out there. Chris and Fulton had a couple nice pass break ups and it seemed to be pretty consistent. How would you assess his play on Sunday? Yeah, man, I was very encouraged with him. I thought he challenged. I thought he was tight. I felt like he took a step in the right direction from what he's kind of been showing here at camp and going through things. It was good to see him get out there and actually play with that confidence and be able to be close on those guys and make some plays on the ball when it was in the air. So I'm encouraged with where he's at. He's got to continue, man, each day out here at practice, he's just got to continue to keep pressing to improve. Like the consistency, always day in and day out and then being able to carry that through on Sunday, which he did last week. How much you hate it for, I guess, Amani, who had kind of earned the spot and now with Bradley, does he give you a guy that you feel good about because of the experience and his knowledge of what they do? Yeah, I mean, it's tough for Amani.  I do. As you guys heard a thousand times, it's next man up, whether it's Bradley, whether it's Dane, whether it's Farley, right? It's next man up. So those guys got to be ready to go. And then we got to kind of see how it plays out, right? As the game's going, how those guys are fitting, how they're handling everything. But excited for those guys' opportunity to go out there and play and make some plays. And they got some shoes to fill, right? Because Hook was doing some good things here. It's good to have Bayard back there to kind of help with whoever's in there. But looking forward to seeing those guys go. You were saying you maybe do a little more situationally then, instead of just, these are two safeties and we're going with them? Yeah, I think based on how the game's going, how they're doing, right? Depending on that, I think that's going to play a role. We're just going to have to keep an eye on them and see how it goes throughout. Third down package, we'll come into play just with where we're using guys and the pieces there. Like that will affect it too. But I think we just got to see how they're doing as the game's going on. More speed in the slot these days in the NFL. Is that one of the things Elijah's going to have to adjust to here in the NFL is getting some of that great speed in the NFL? Yeah, and I think always with that position, you got to understand where your help's coming from, right? Like more times than not, you're going to have a piece somewhere but understanding where the help's coming from. But those guys are fast, they're shifty, like they're hard. It's hard to cover those guys, it is. But I think just understanding the scheme and how he can use the scheme to kind of use it to his advantage when he's put in those positions to have to cover those guys. So talk about the CTD pass. Is that perhaps something that you're referring to? Yes, exactly. Like same deal, just understanding what's going on and understanding the, and it's kind of, it goes back to a rookie understanding, being able to, in the situation, know what to expect to some degree too, right? Like, and that comes the more experience you have, the more knowledge you have, you're not just out there truly playing and trying to execute a call. You're able to piece a lot more together the more you play, right? So I think he'll come. He's a smart kid, he works hard. It's just got to be, we got to translate that a little bit better on Sunday at times. Conceptual understanding, position to position, guy to guy, where are you with that? Yeah, I think it's pretty good. I mean, I didn't, there were a handful of MAs, but overall I thought the guys were pretty locked in. It goes, and to me, like, the conceptual understanding part, very similar to what I was just talking about with Elijah, like, I got to know what the guy next to me is doing. Cause it's going to affect my job. Whatever they throw at me, like, knowing what the guy next to me, how he's going to fit, how he's going to play this route, like, knowing that stuff within the concept, whether it's man, whether it's cover two, cover three, cover four, like that can only further enhance my understanding of kind of how to get my job done based on what we're seeing. You expected Autry to maybe get some more snaps than he did, and what did you think of his performance, Autry? Autry, yeah, I mean, I thought he did a good job when he was out there. I mean, it's good, we're able to rotate those guys and hopefully keep them fresh.


Good morning cyber traders! Happy Friday! My God, another gorgeous, gorgeous day. Low humidity here in New York. How is it in your guys' neck of the woods? Everybody doing pretty well? I feel like I'm coming in so loud. There we go. Let me just try to low that. There we go. Nice and warm where you guys all are. Nice in Kansas City, Wayne. All right. Hot in California. Pouring rain and smoking mountain Tennessee for Judy. Look at that. But you know what? Weather's so nice inside, isn't it? Isn't it nice to sit there and trade?  I love it. Love it. And you know, it's all so great. It is Friday. So what does Friday mean? It means we're going to have a nice long weekend. Cool first rain couple of months. There you go in Arizona, right from Lawrence. Look at that. It's payday, right Ken? Friday's payday. Actually payday is usually Tuesdays, so no one blows it all on Friday in the weekend. But in your payroll, Ken, every day's a payday, right? Ken did great last week. I mean yesterday, right Ken? Let's give him a round of applause. Maybe over 4,000. There you go, Ken. Nice. A lot of guys made a lot of money yesterday. So anyway, let's get right into it. Talk about a couple of stocks. First of all, we've been watching this AWX this morning. Stock had a good, good push. I thought we were going to have a nice little rally in it. I don't know, backed off. And one thing I do want to point out about the AWX, it broke lower lows. And once I saw that, I'm like, you know, I'm not a real fan of it so far. So I got out of it. I'll end up probably buying it back if it gets pushing. But she started teetotottering when I saw those lower lows. Let me just bring this up the time frame so you guys can see a little bit better. Right there, you can see when it started doing that, I wasn't too much of a fan. So we'll see how she holds up. But you all remember this one, guys. This is the stock that we traded. It went from a dollar to $20, great, great short squeeze. That was one of the big hits that paid for July. And by the way, we have these at least one or twice a week. So if you missed it, thought we were going to have it again. But let's keep it a close eye on it. That one's going to make my watch list. But let's talk about some of the other stocks that we did trade yesterday because there were a lot of good winners. First of all, Roku, big, big winner yesterday. We fixed the time frame here so we can go back and see it. Roku was a huge winner, 52 to 57. That was one of the great calls. A lot of you guys made a lot of money on that. Yelp. Also another big winner. Pop from 44 to 49. And match. Match had a nice little move, 45 to 49. Now, the bad thing about all three of these stocks, just so everybody know, this was not your typical level one stock. There's a lot of people that are here that are starting out and they veer to options because they think they can't afford these stocks. They saw in the real that they're fast. Listen to your beginner trader. Let me just tell you guys, when you'll get it, you'll get it. Believe me, it's not that hard. You know what the hardest thing to do in trading is to trade one share, one stinking little share.  If you haven't figured it out what that means, you better sit in the room just a little bit longer what the hell it means to trade one share of stock. Let that sink into your head. One share. And let me just tell you really quick, if you can't trade one share, you won't be like Ben who traded 15,000 shares on the MHLD and making a killing on a short. That's what it's all about. So you gotta know how to play the game, guys. By the way, let's give him a round of applause. He made himself 15,000 yesterday on that stock right there. Good job, Ben. Actually, would that be a breaking news? Because that stock crashed. Love the sound effects. Anyway, pretty good day overall. But that's what trading is all about. And that's what we do. So hopefully a lot of you here that have been here and been watching over the course of the day of being in the original trading room on the internet that I started 25 years ago, you see what it's all about. It's all about working together like a team and making money. Now, a couple of the things that are making some big moves. Obviously, you see the news that came out where Overstock's taking a little bit of a hit. You can hear that the forex is taking a big hit to Turkish market down 11% on the dollar. It's funny, but days like that is probably the only day you could ever trade forex. I mean, honestly, there's not too many days that I know. And that's another reason people think you got to trade forex. You don't get too crazy volatility when it comes to the forex market.  All right. Now, yep, looks like AWX didn't make its big move, Ken. So maybe it's time to jump back in. Let's see if it breaks through this resistance. But we know that AWX is not your level one stock, right? We know this stock is definitely going to get into three categories. But as of right now, in the pre-market, it's in the two category. All right. So that one is the top of our list. Okay. A couple of the stocks I want to do point out. TTW is also making the watch list. You could see that stock right after the close had a really big gap up. Bad thing about TTD, it's $114. But if you're a level five trader, this is what you're looking for, screaming beautiful stock, breaking all-time highs. Stock was a $45 stock. A lot of you guys remember this. The trade desk, we traded this back a few months back and sure enough, look at it now. So listen, I say this all the time. You want to be a good swing trader, you want to be a good investor, you bet it, damn know how to day trade first because it's what happens over the course of the day, which trickles down to a swing trade and an option trade. And TTD was one of them. Another one that's also making some noise this morning is hair. Hair getting crushed. Crushed. Look at that. So I don't know, guys. If you're a day trader, you would have figured that out when it was at three. You didn't want to get out of it. Look where it is today. All right. And then the GEMP, another one, crushed. Let me tell you, what do we know about pharmaceutical stocks, guys? Have we traded hair? Yeah, we did traded hair. It was a robotics company. But go back in your journals, Ken, and check it out. Anyway, what do we know about pharmaceutical stocks? They never come back. And look at this one, crushed, just totally decimated. And you know what?  If you didn't learn when it was at seven in a tank, and you didn't get out when it was back here and trading at the lows, boom, that went from five down to 350, thought you was safe. Oh my God, I'm down half my money. Now you're down to a dollar.  You better learn how to day trade first, because that's where it all starts. That's right. Grant, they do not come back. All right. Rx losses don't come back. That's right. And you know what? And a lot of you guys have been here for a while. You know this because we've been doing this for a while. Which is the H... What was the other one that we traded that took a big hit? Was it the H&LY? Is that what it was? Hold on. What was the other one? H&LY? It was the one that just got crushed, that we just traded three days ago. I was talking about the reverse stock split. Harmony? What is it? H&M... That's right. H&M and Y. All right. So I want to talk a little bit about this stock really quick, because this stock right here did a reverse stock split. Okay?  But garbage. All right. So anyway, let me tell you the fun. Let me tell you the story. Our YouTube video... I did a YouTube video and it was probably... It was the most... One of the most successive videos that I've made. And it was about reverse stock splits. And you know, and one of the students here, a new student, found us on YouTube because of this one stock. And let me tell you what happened. I did it. If you guys remember, and look it up, you look up on our channel and watch it. And even if you're not even... Like I said, you got the time. Everybody's going to learn something very valuable. And let me tell you, it's for free. So by you watching this video, you're going to really be shocked. When we talked about H&M and Y, and I said a reverse stock split. This was a reverse stock split. And I said, guys, when a company does a reverse stock split, that is the worst news you could ever get into a stock. The worst news.  Let me just bring up a different chart because this website platform doesn't incorporate it. So the company was trading at eight cents. It did reverse stock split. It went all the way up to about $15. I don't know what that is, a hundred to one stock split, whatever it is. And everyone was panicking because a lot of people own this stock. And look what it did. It went right back down to six cents, $15 down to six cents. That means this stock is trading like a hundred tenth of a penny. Now the reason why I'm bringing this up is because this new student that joined Cybertrain University says, Falstow, if it wasn't for you, he goes, I lost $3,000 on this trade because I didn't know what to do. By the time I watched your video, I finally realized let me sell it. She got out at $11. $11 she got out at. Lost $3,000 on that trade. If she didn't sell it when she watched my video, guess what? It's down to six. Six dollars. I'm sorry, six cents. That's not a misprint. Let me tell you something. I've been doing this for 25 years. I have never seen a stock do reverse stock split that high and drop that low. Not even Ken, not even dryers did that. Not even dryers did that in less than five days. In five days, that has got to be the ultimate worst I've ever seen. That is dryers have been compete with that. So anyway, she's a new student here at Cybertrain University. So we're going to welcome her aboard. Like I said, I don't want anyone to know about her position, but it was just great to see that. I did a very good cause for someone and I can imagine a lot of people I've done it for on this one specific stock because it literally would have lost everything on this position, everything. Here now, Joanna, there she goes. She wants to say it. Let's give her a round of applause for being part of the team, Joanna. I guess you want to say it. She's here now to run the money back up. Don't worry about it. Just thank God you got out of it because you would have lost everything. You would have lost everything on that position and they'll put you really literally out of business, out of business. Listen, you got to learn before you could earn and no matter how good of a trader you are, you think you are, great traders never stop learning. Anyway, so that was the tip of the day, guys, about the stock splits.  And we called it that morning. We called it out that morning and it was great. So anyway, thanks everyone. So listen, today is Friday. Don't forget, it's the weekend. A lot of people are going to be going away enjoying their summer vacations. I'm also going to be going on vacation, but let me tell you, I told my wife, guys, listen, I'm going to still trade in the morning. So you guys enjoy the beach at the beach house. I'm still going to be there. So I'll be in and out on next week. But I'll still be in touch. So I'll be around. In the meantime, everyone, enjoy your weekend. Let's make some money today. Don't get too cocky. It is Friday. Surprisingly, we've done very well on Fridays. But if it's not there, it's not there. We've got a couple of stocks. Let's see how they work out and we'll keep a close eye on this AWX. All right, guys, because crazy things have happened and we see this thing go. And you never know, it could happen again. Good luck, everyone. Happy trading.