Ed. Note by Seth: Yesterday was the ten anniversary of Staking The Plains. I asked Travis to come out of retirement, catch up a bit, skip down memory lane with me and do something we haven’t done in a while. Thank to each and every one of you for coming along for the ride and being part of this website and community. You truly do not understand how important and impactful you all have been to me and my family.

Seth: Hello! I’m not sure what to do with my hands so I’ll just start. You and I have disappeared from social media for the most part and let’s start off cordially by asking how you are doing and catch us up on your family.

Travis: Oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man oh man I’m so excited we’re doing this again.

I’ve been good. Turned 51 in December and still feel like I’m not old enough to be left home alone. Such a weird phenomenon that will likely never go away.

Claire is in grad school at UNT Frisco, studying Sports Management and Marketing. She’s in Addison so I think she’s kinda close to where you stay. She had her 4th knee surgery in late October, this time to repair PCL, meniscus and a lot of bone spurs. She really gave everything she had to basketball but is now charging along in her next chapter. I can see her being an AD at a college or marketing director for a pro team someday. She’s got skills.

Cade is 15 and taller than me now, which totally sucks balls. I fought him off for as long as I could, but he passed me up a month or so ago. He’s essentially the moral compass for the family, very grounded and sorta watches over the rest of us to make sure we’re on track. He was pretty disappointed in me last Saturday night when I almost got into a fight at the rodeo.

Cash is the star of the family. He’s the only extrovert in a family of introverts. As such, he essentially runs things around here. We eat a lot of Skittles and Crumbl cookies as per his wishes. For those that don’t know, he had open heart surgery in June of 2023 but is doing well now. His heart valves are close to normal size again and should be for some time, which is great. He’s trying out for a club basketball team this weekend and we’re excited for him. A funny thing about his heart condition though is the effects the surgery had on him mentally after it was all over. He had all that pent up worry and fear for so long that he had to direct it somewhere once the surgery was a success. He got super scared of things like the sky, and space, and was always worried that something really bad was on the way. He’s been talking to a counselor for the past few months and is getting better. He’s the bravest kid I’ve ever known.

And through it all my wife has been there to keep us all sane. She’s the absolute best.

What I miss most about Twitter is keeping up with you and your boys. I’m guessing Yo is fielding scholarship offers in multiple sports and Fitsum is working on his doctorate by now? How’s life up where you stay?

Seth: Let Cash know that I had open heart surgery as a kid as well, I was 4 the first time and 6 the second time. I had a hole in my heart, so they had to sew it up, the stitches came undone the first time and then they came back and really fixed it the second time. I can absolutely relate to being unsure of things. For me, I was completely unsure of myself for the longest time, I never wanted to take my shirt off and always embarrassed by this huge scar on my chest. I didn’t get around to allowing myself to be good with who I was until I was a senior in high school. That’s a long time to be unsure of yourself. I am super happy that Cash is getting help and isn’t letting that surgery hold him back.

Claire is close to me, about an hour+ north of where we camp every night so that’s close in today’s world for sure. Cade definitely has basketball opinions on the Twit-machine, I love that he’s watching and figuring things out closely. I’ve got some opinions on club and AAU basketball that I’m sure we could spend a few hours contemplating.

I’ll start with Fitsum, he’s doing great, he’s a freshman in high school and taking honors and AP classes. We found out last week that he’s made the initial cut for the top 10%, so we could not be more proud of him. We were pretty concerned about his ability to manage his workload, he’s not exactly organized, but something clicked between last year and this year and he’s very diligent about getting his homework done and balancing every class. Add in band, which is way too much, and getting up early for track and cross-country, and I don’t see how he does it.

Youssouf is absolutely continuing his athletic journey. I do want to be clear that Yo is a smart kid, he’s taking honors classes and is a 90% of the time an A and occasional B student, so he’s a smart kid and he’s athletic. We had never let him play tackle football until this year and he played running back and was great. We never keep track of stats, but he was really good and is a difficult person to stop, plus his speed is something else. Junior high basketball season just finished and I think he probably averaged 25 to 30 points a game, while club basketball is well underway. He’s continuing on his Showtyme team which is “ranked” 5th in the nation, but that’s not really accurate and you realize that club teams that are ranked are just ranked off of the good wins you have. We don’t keep stats in basketball, but I can comfortably say that he’s a top 50 player in the nation if you take out all of the kids who have “reclassified” and are playing down a level or two.

I’ll also say that that I’m really lucky in that I get to do very different things with the boys. With Fits, he is a comic book and Lego nerd, just like me, and we have appointment television together, including Invincible (probably not appropriate for him, but he’s pretty mature for his age), Fallout (definitely not appropriate, but I’m pretty sure I saw more and worse at his age), and Arcane. That’s just a few, but we’ve absolutely bonded on being able to watch and discuss shows. And with Yo, we get to share sports and I get to be part of his journey. I can see things in his shot that he doesn’t see and I can help him with things that he’s not noticing.

My wife is awesome, she took a job as an assistant principal at one of the intermediate schools where we live and your public educators are doing so much for your kids it’s not even funny.

I wanted to start with something that mixes a few things. The Mavs traded Luka Doncic to the Lakers for Anthony Davis and the thing that struck me about this was how hurt Mavs’ fans were to the whole situation. Believe it or not, it reminded me about Mike Leach being fired from Texas Tech. You had an entire fanbase turn on an institution and certain administrative individuals. And then you had these individuals like Luka and Leach where my initial thought was that they were victims, but they probably shared a bit in the responsibility of why they ended up where they did. Luka probably had to know that he wasn’t his best and didn’t come into seasons in good shape and Leach probably knew that he was difficult to deal with, I can’t help but think that these individuals are smart and self-aware, but they are/were also immensely talented. Mavs fans are talking about how long it will take to heal and I keep thinking that it took until Joey McGuire to really not run from Leach’s legacy and embrace it for the fans to finally be okay. That was like 15 years ago!

Travis: Wow, I don’t think I knew about your heart surgeries. Maybe I did but just blocked it out? I know we spent some time discussing your self diagnosed lactose intolerance but don’t remember ever discussing your heart condition. If I had known I probably would’ve leaned on you a little more during that time when Cash was getting ready for surgery. As a parent, it’s a very difficult thing to go through. You honestly feel like you might be responsible for the death of your child because in a way the surgery is voluntary. I mean, we drove him to the hospital on the morning of the surgery and willingly checked him in. Maybe they invent a less invasive procedure in the next six months that will make things safer? It’s just so hard. I remember when they wheeled him off and I got a text that said “the patient is in the operating room. The procedure has begun.” It was surreal and horrifying. He was in surgery for almost nine hours, and it was just an awful day, but he made it through.

And I’m glad you brought up the Luka trade because I was honestly afraid to. I feel just awful for Mav’s fans because it has to be the worst trade in NBA history. It’s like if the Cavs decided to trade LeBron to the Celtics after losing the Finals in 2007. It just makes no sense. And I’ve thought about the comparisons to the Leach firing and the cleft it left in the fanbase for so long. I know it took me a long time to enjoy Tech football again, and it’s still not like it used to be when I was an absolute maniac on Saturdays in the fall. I’m a huge Spurs fan but honestly feel terrible for Mav’s fans and hope things get better for all you guys.

But picking up on the Tech football angle, I’d like to get your thoughts on where the program is headed. I’ve fallen into the trap of us winning a championship in the summer the last two years and am a bit gun shy of falling for it again this year. I’m a bit more skeptical of Joey now and feel like this is a real make or break year for him and the program. I don’t care about what happens this summer, I want to see the results in the fall.

What’s funny is I’ve always been a bit leery about McCasland while being fully bought in on McGuire. That has flipped for me over the last few weeks/months as I’m completely sold on McCasland and where he can take the basketball program. After the ASU game the other night he was talking about Darrion Williams and how he can take the ball to his left, and he was just so excited and animated. It’s contagious. I’d also like to note that I think the win over ASU is almost as impressive as the win over Houston a few weeks ago. Two completely different animals in that ASU isn’t really that good and UH is a top caliber team, so comparing the wins doesn’t make a lot of sense, but when you can overcome a team shooting the ball the way ASU was that night and still pull off a gutsy win, I think that goes a long way. It kinda builds that scar tissue up to where those guys know they can take almost any kind of punch and respond. Super impressive win, team and coach. So, along with your thoughts on Tech football, where are you with the basketball program and McCasland?

Seth: I get to wear that scar every day and rather than it being something that I was ashamed of, I now wear it as a badge of courage. Something I’ve overcome and I’ve left that part about holding me back long ago.

With McGuire, he has been given everything he wants. The best thing is that he is not afraid of the moment, he knows he’s been given the keys and he knows that the opportunity he wants is right in front of him. I personally don’t think there is no reason to not buy the hype. It’s free and it will never fill you up, but the worst that can happen is that you will have reasonably believed in something that could be great.

I’m with you on McCasland. That first conference game loss to UCF, he basically made a promise to you and me and everyone else that this wasn’t going to happen again. And it hasn’t. McCasland has a firm belief in his team and it is clear. For the longest time, I thought that Chris Beard was a great head coach and I sort of knew that he drove the team so hard every single day and in maybe some not-so-pleasant ways, but McCasland’s ability to drive people is genuine and heart-felt and it is clear. The way he talked about Chance McMillian after one of his big games was emotional and real. That was not for the cameras, I don’t think. I think that Texas Tech has a good one in McCasland and I hope he is here as long as he wants to be.

And I’m sort of with you on the fanatical side of things, where my fandom has definitely changed. I am on this side of things where I think I have a son who is going to not have to pay for college and he’s special athletically. You mentioned that at 15 Cade is taller than you. Well, it’s not difficult for my kids to pass me as I’m just 5’9″, Fits is just right there with me at 15, while Yo is pushing 6’0″ at 13 and he probably weighs 170. So being on this side of things is really eye-opening, where people want your kid, so you see the AAU coaches and you see the how some teams game the system by “reclassifying” players, so Yo ends playing kids who are a year or two older because they’ve been “held back” which I’m still not even sure how it works, but he’s playing kids with mustaches.

Maybe this is a culmination of a few things, but where is your collegiate fandom? For me, I was a huge Mavs fan and now I’m in a weird place so unlike you, I don’t have a professional team that I’m invested in any sort of way. The Rangers are fine, but it wasn’t like the Mavs for me. And with collegiate athletics, this wave of power-hungry power-brokers in the SEC and Big Ten feels like a wave that we can all see from the shore and we know it is on the way. Even in the next 5 years, the collegiate game will look significantly different than it does today (heck, maybe even next year). Do you and your kids gather around to watch games or has life simply gotten in the way and it’s just not as important as it once was?

Travis: My fandom has certainly evolved over the years. Partly from getting older but I guess it’s also partly due to having a daughter that kinda went thru that grinder (albeit on a much smaller scale) but I got to see how hard she and her teammates had to work at the collegiate level and all the ups and downs that came with that. It definitely made me realize that there’s no need to ever, EVER, confront a kid on social media or anywhere else about their performance on the field/court. Hell, I’m even reluctant to criticize professionals now (looking at you Keldon Johnson) because it all seems so silly. I still watch every Tech game and every Spurs game, but am calmer about the results.

The funny thing is my boys are getting bitten by the fanatic bug, especially Cade. He became a huge Tech football fan this year and follows all the recruiting and transfer portal stuff. He was in “scare the dogs,” mode all season when games were on (he’s the same way during Spurs games), and I would sit back and laugh. I’d apologize to him when things were going bad for Tech but would let him know it’s all part of the ride. Tech football should come with a Surgeon General’s warning, but he’s all in now. Cash has been a Buffalo Bills fan for about three years now, so it’s been tough on him during the playoffs when Allen has to face off against Mahomes, but he’s also all in on Tech football and basketball. It’s definitely fun. One thing that’s a little bit odd is that I can sit down and watch a basketball game with Claire and realize that she is most likely watching the game in a completely different way than I am. It’s weird knowing that your daughter understands the game so much better than I ever will. Kinda kills the old grizzled, blog master armchair quarterback vibe that I worked on developing for so many years.

So, I want to throw something out there and get it on the record because my family is frankly sick of me talking about it. Over the past few months, I’ve become obsessed with AI and how it is going to fundamentally change the world we’re living in in just a matter of years. I get lots of eye rolls whenever I bring it up, but I’m telling you, we’re entering into a time when things could get infinitely better, or infinitely worse, depending on how we adapt to it. Like- AI could cure cancer within 5 years. But also, CPA’s and financial planners/advisors could be extinct. Nurses- why would we need a nurse? Everyone knows about ChatGPT and what AI can do with pictures/art but in the next few years we’ll see the emergence of AI Agents who will essentially be performing tasks of employees, and the robotics side of AI is about to really take off as well.

I don’t know man, just wanted to throw it all out there. I know you’re a forward-thinking type of guy so wanted to see if you’ve been thinking about it as much as I have. I know it’s a big deal in the field of law as well.

Seth: My thoughts about AI aren’t all that interesting, I don’t think. My first thought was that the investment in AI seems to be heavily out-weighed by the utility at this point and if I were to guess, this feels a bit like a grift. That’s not to say that it won’t have utility, but the billions of dollars invested into AI and the utility seems minimal for normal people. I do have an attorney friend that is trying to utilize AI to help with discovery and case summaries. I think that there will be an inflection point much sooner than later where AI will be prevalent and humans have a history of using something inappropriately and then we all discover that it really is inappropriate and we can’t put the genie back in the bottle. I don’t know about prognosticating how terrible it will be simply because I cannot foresee what it might be like, but it won’t be good. And that’s one of the reasons why I’ve sort of removed myself from social media is that I don’t want to be part of the data set for X/Twitter or for Instagram. I’ve chose to remove myself so that my data doesn’t become part of what’s been fed into the AI machine.

So we’ll end it here in a bit, but it’s been 10 years since STP started and I made the decision to split from SB Nation for a variety of reasons. In that 10 years, we’ve had quite the adventure. So I’d ask you, what was your memory 10 years ago and what was the best thing you did on STP in that time.

Travis: I can see how grifters could be taking advantage of some of this, but I think overall it’s a big race to see who will be able to dominate the space. Because of that, the speed at which advancements are being made is moving along more rapidly than first anticipated toward what they call “the singularity,” which is essentially when AI and the human brain become one. It sounds wild, I know, especially when now we only see weird AI generated art and poorly written term papers that high schoolers try to pass of as their own. The world is going to drastically change in the next decade.

But anyway, enough about robots revolting and eating our faces. I remember when you decided to make the split from VTM and start STP you were incredibly anxious about it, and rightfully so. We exchanged tons of text messages and emails in the days leading up to the split. I was very excited and naive, and you were feeling the weight of it all. I just tried to be supportive, but I think you knew that it was a big risk to move away from the SB Nation brand. I also remember what dicks those SBN guys were for not letting you keep the VTM Twitter account. Looking back now I bet they wish they would’ve let you keep it, lol.

I think the best thing I did at STP was the Lubbock, in pieces story that I wrote in 2015. Then that served as the impetus for me to try and write a book a chapter at a time the next year, which turned out to be extremely challenging but a lot of fun. I’m super proud of both of those because it was essentially a love letter to Lubbock and the South Plains and the beauty and danger and conformity and discipline and chaos that can be found in those perfectly rowed cotton fields and symmetrically spaced streets.

What I love most about the book is that it’s part just a tongue in cheek reference to some of the stuff I’d created over the years layered in with new characters I tried to create. I created Gilbert back in the VTM days as a way for us to vent about our worries and anxieties. He was this really nerdy guy afraid of his own shadow but in the book, I turned him into a cold-blooded assassin with perfect hair and a strong jawline. I put a bunch of easter eggs in the book that only regular readers of STP would pick up on, which was sort of a wink to everyone here, but also made it realistic enough that anyone reading the book outside of STP could still find things believable. I had several friends and associates over the years tell me they really enjoyed the book without knowing some of the ridiculous twists I’d made. My wife said the book made her cry. I even made all of the first letters of the character’s names in the book spell out the name of the lead character, “Jarrell.” And then to capture that moment in time when Mahomes was ascending, and Trump was being elected President and all of the turmoil associated with that, and to sprinkle in areas and restaurants and dirt roads and train tracks that I grew up on, it was the best. it’s just a little time capsule in West Texas that I’m proud to have captured.

So, I want to finish this out by glazing you for a bit. (That’s what the kids say, right?) We’ve known each other for about 15 years now and I don’t think I can express enough how much I admire you. The choices you and your wife have made to adopt your two sons, and the grace and humility in which you continue to foist upon them, and how you champion them and how you’ve forged them into such fine young men. And you’ve done all of this while twice building an online community from scratch that for the most part avoids the most negative aspects of the web and is just a fun and informative place to hang out. I think I speak for a lot of us when I say you’re really like a moral beacon out there in North Texas. We could probably all use wristbands that say “WWSD,” to remind us to be better people.

In January of 2010 I started posting on VTM and you let me get away with so much crap, it’s really hard to believe. I was an anonymous bull in a China shop just wrecking everything I could, and you never stepped in and told me to slow down. But what you did do was, on those rare occasions when I’d write something less cheeky and more heartfelt, you’d point it out and say how much you enjoyed that. So that encouraged me to stop hiding behind the facade of crazy SARR and write from the heart. And it worked. I got to cover the Spurs during their championship season in 2014 and began selling stories and articles. For a brief time, I was a legit writer, published by the likes Sports Illustrated and NBC Sports. I published a book and sold a few hundred copies. I had breakfast with Stuart Scott and got called an “idiot blogger,” by Charles Barkley on National TV. Rush Limbaugh read one of my political articles critical of him on his radio show listened to by millions. I met Mike Wilbon and Stephen A. Smith and watched LeBron and Tim Duncan and Dirk and KD and Russ talk about the ups and downs of the NBA from a few feet away. I got to interview Kliff Kingsbury and hang out in Josh Abbott’s dressing room backstage during one of his shows. And I got to do all of that because you let me come in here and act like an idiot a few times a week until I found my voice. I can never thank you enough for that. I love you, brother.

Seth: I was not expecting that. I am thankful for your friendship and for everything. I definitely remember just trusting you and letting you write whatever you wanted. There was never any fear on my end of things, I was always impressed by how inventive you were. There was nothing like it anywhere on the internet in the throws of the Mike Leach debacle.

Thank you for reminiscing on 10 years and more.

Love you too.