Hello again everyone.

It's Arkansas Week and we thank you for joining us.

Maternal infant reproductive health, a continuing issue for our state and appropriately so.

And for this program appropriately so in a few moments, then we will get details of a new $12 million program designed to improve outcomes for mothers and their babies.

First, one of our rare sports pages.

Although the story is cultural and social and economic as well, after one of the most dismal Razorback football seasons in history, the USA has a new head coach, but so do several other schools in the SEC and across the nation.

And that's amid salaries and compensation for coaches and players in a dynamic unheard of short years ago.

So we are joined by a couple of experts, you know, Bo Wilcox writes football for the Arkansas Times.

David Basil covers the field for 137 the buzz.

Gents, thanks for coming in.

Mark, we'll start with you.

Where, you know, we got a new head coach.

Season's over.

210.

Not very happy.

Where are we?

Let's see.

First of all, I want you to promise me that you're going to invite me back to Arkansas week one of these days and talk about pleasant things and about when we're winning again, because that's the only time I get invited on is when we have controversy.

Year after.

Hire another coach.

You know, this is the sixth time, since the early 2000, that we've hired a new coach six times.

I don't think there's anybody in the SEC that that that has done that.

So it's exhaustive.

You see how angry fans get?

And this was sort of the same kind of situation.

You fired a coach midway through the season, which is, you know, that's so you've got you know, you've got to finish the season with an interim coach and then you have expectation.

Surely if we've waited this long, we're going to get who we want.

And I think the first reaction when Ryan Silver Field was announced, it was not the name that Arkansas fans wanted.

And so they reacted negatively.

And I think since that time, I think most of them have said, okay, we're going to give this guy a chance.

He's done some good things the first week or two, so we'll see.

But yeah, it's it's it's, you know, an oh set fan base to this way, but you know, Arkansas, I said three, two and eight seasons out of the last eight years and that, that can really grind on a fan base.

Yeah.

Bo well, I think, the blowback, if you will, from, the fans about Silver Field just comes from, I think, a lack of context.

Again, I think bass touched on it.

Fans have very, very unrealistic expectations around here, especially when it comes to the coach, quality that we can get.

And, you know, the nature of, of his or his past success.

And so I think silver Field was as accomplished as anyone.

And he had definitely done a number on us in September.

So I think that, you know, sometimes that old adage of, you know, if you can't beat him, hire him.

That's kind of what happened.

I don't think it was a glamorous.

I also don't think it was nearly as bad as a lot of people thought impulsively.

But he's got some, some good momentum coming in with some of the commitments he's brought.

I think the D commits have not been quite as damaging to the program.

And I think that's some of the players that have recommitted.

K.J.

Jackson, I think, you know, most notably to mine, they're going to get, some of the useful parts back and they're going to have some new players in.

And I think, if nothing else, everybody needs to just, you know, hold on for, for dear life again, because it's going to be interesting the next year to two years to a great many people, hanging or coloring this entire situation is money.

Some of us are old enough to remember a gentleman named Broyles who would who would be spinning in his grave resting.

So if he could look at the numbers this year, now we're paying the our new head coach, the Fayetteville new head coach, something in the neighborhood of, I think 9 million over a period.

One of his is a gentleman named Kiffin is going is now in Baton Rouge for something like ten times that.

So yeah, it's it's it's, it's completely gotten out of hand.

It's, it's a it's a horrible business model.

And what's worse, Steve, it's not really that they're paying 10 to $12 million a year for a coach, is it?

When they're fired, you get this right.

You give another 40, $50 million and there's hundreds of millions, I think $250 million.

Bo that that has to be paid out to fired coaches.

No other no other company or business does business like that.

And agents have control the narrative, control the negotiations and that's what happened to this point.

They still are.

Well, guys, we also have the the issue, which is now the second or third year of player compensation.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's that's that's okay.

I'm even though I would have loved to have made some money, I don't know what my initial deal would have been.

Maybe my mustache, maybe some hair gel, I don't know.

But yeah, that's another whole thing to Steve is that now you're saying player salaries?

1 million, 2 million, 3 million, 4 million.

It's it's actually some of these guys are being paid more than rookie NFL players, and there's no end in sight right now.

I mean, they're trying to get to it.

So you have a major challenge with athletic directors around the country.

Yeah.

Well Bo coming back to that, the the matter of money, is Arkansas in a position to compete given the the financial dynamics of the game constantly here that we're not.

But I also look at, again, we reflect back on what Hunter Jurczyk said at the Touchdown Club about, you know, the viability of Arkansas financially to compete in football specifically.

And I think it it shows to me that even with an interim coach, when a lot of close games that a terrible defense, I feel like if one coach can come along and fix a defense at some point in this state, they could be exalted forever, because that's been the bugaboo for years.

I think we've consistently had an offense in the SEC that's a decent you know, I can think of only a couple of years where we were pretty pedestrian at throwing and running and that's not been the case.

Problem is, we can't stop anybody with any consistency.

And that's to me it's been a lack of personnel.

So, you know, again, if you want to save some money someplace is if you're Arkansas and you think the resources are limited.

Well, I think we just accomplished one thing, which is we didn't pay Ryan Silver Field, Lane Kiffin money.

He's not Lane Kiffin and I get that.

But I also can't imagine, wanting to take the leap that Lane Kiffin did.

And that just comes from I think, thinking that LSU is not in as great a shape as Mississippi right now.

And that's crazy to say, but I felt like Lane Kiffin could have been elected governor.

And, you know, the next day he was he was persona non grata.

I don't I don't think it's sustainable.

Steve Saint Point I mean again what's happening.

You have, Your honor your check making phone calls.

You know, every day I need 5 million from you.

I need a million from you.

And we're going to get the money.

And you could do that for a period of time, but at some point, you're going to have donors going, you know, I'm tapping out.

You got 100 men roster, 100 man rosters, and you're paying, you know, guys that are not even playing 100,000, 500,000, 7 to 18 year old kids and aren't very good, some of them.

So I think it's going to be tough to sustain.

You look at Indiana, Vanderbilt, there is hope that it's not just about money, although Indiana spent some money, but Vanderbilt and others did not.

But the Iowa athletic director, this week came out and just said, I'm just telling you, we don't know how we're going to do this with money.

And it just until there's some guardrails which you're trying to work on to say, can we have some control over how much can be spent?

We're going to have trouble, you know, making this thing be fair to everybody, okay, absent those guardrails.

And this is anecdotal.

I mean, again, no names, but what I'm hearing from some guys who know more about the game, including you guys, than I do, there is some concern that the the names that we all know who have written big checks over the years, they are in their declining years, or they're gone and their and their, descendants aren't nearly as committed to the program as perhaps their parents were or their grandparents were.

At the same time, you have a lot of fans.

Again, this is anecdotal on my part.

They're getting pretty jaundiced when they look at the numbers that we're talking about in terms of money.

Yeah.

Fan support, state support.

Is it in danger, guys?

Well, I think that, you know, you have to spend money to make money.

And in in Arkansas has had a hard time doing that.

And when the program's been in the shape it's been for the better part of the last, say, 20 years.

You really do have a lot of hurdles to clear.

You know, you just mentioned you've got a generation dying off and the generation behind it and the generation behind that hasn't seen a program with much success.

And so it is hard to sell that product to people that aren't familiar with it.

And so I do think there's going to be a big shift in where the money comes from, when it comes from, you know, the larger companies, whether it comes from the fans, whether it comes from other, you know, sources, regardless of where it comes from, it's going to have to be prudently invested.

And I think that's where my concern is, is, you know, I know we just hired a general manager, for instance, which five years ago there was no such a thing as a general manager in college football.

And we just hired one who seems to have the pedigree to do this, although that's why I would even say that, because, you know, I think he was a tech guy or something.

You know, he didn't come from the sports background necessarily.

So it's all very unusual.

It's all very hard to to, to put a finger on.

But, you know, I think Arkansas fans need to be prepared for a again, another long climb up a hill that we've always had to battle, which is being sort of the lower in on the pecking order in this conference.

Yeah, yeah, I think you make it, Tyson Hunt, Walmart.

You know, Stevens, you know, I think that's a valid point.

Steve Tyson at some point they're going to go, okay, you know, this is as much as we're going to unless you get a hold on this good thing to the game of football is still the greatest sport in America.

You look at the NFL they're doing it's the only thing that eyeballs, they get eyeballs.

I mean, major eyeballs for both the NFL and college.

Those two are the biggest sports.

They generate a ton of money.

So you're always going to have that money there.

But then is how much more can you generate.

And again until I think they have some type of a cap, it's going to be tough for schools that aren't the blue bloods like Alabama, Texas and then Michigan and such tend to be able to compete.

It's going to be hard to sustain this well, as of today, thank God we're not Michigan.

Yeah.

That's right.

And the other thing too is if you win, Steve, if you win, it makes things a lot better.

You know for sure Nate.

It's hard to get anybody to give you any money when you tend to do a little bit easier to give up some cash.

Yeah.

Our friends at, at Broadway brought to business.

We have this story just on the, on the site this morning.

Reports that, well, we know from previous days tourism revenue was down a little bit in Arkansas as it was across much of the nation.

At the same time, wagering revenue, gambling revenue and also up by double digits.

So, again, let me return to the question of money and sports.

The potential would seem to be here.

And we know that there's already some investigations underway.

And, and baseball and I think another sport now which I can't recall.

But I mean, the potential is there for some, some real scandal, is there not?

Yeah.

Especially with the prop bets where you're actually betting on players to perform.

And that's where you're seeing baller Strike.

Yeah.

Even even that.

Yeah.

It's somewhat you know but but I want full disclosure I do do endorsements for for Oakland.

So let me say that.

But I am not surprised because again, Americans love sports.

Absolutely love it.

And they when you have a chance to be engaged and be able to to to wager with your phone, it's something to do.

And it's big business.

And that's why everybody's getting in it, Steve.

And but you're right, it's certainly at the collegiate level.

They're obviously at the pro level.

They're very they watch every second the collegiate level.

You have a lot more.

It's a lot tougher to be able to control that and monitor that, not stay with my master.

Just saying.

If I heard him correctly, our friend Bo here sees a little bit of light at the end of the Razorback tunnel.

Some potential there.

Yeah, I hope so, I hope so.

I think he's a good coach.

I think he comes in, you know, he beat us again.

When I watched Steve I watched him in person.

I watched that Memphis team beat us.

And I remember coming to our friend Steve Sullivan said, Steve, I wish our team played as hard as what Memphis was playing.

When they beat us, we were up 18 points.

They came back and beat us over Memphis and they were better coached than we were.

So I think that gives them hope.

But the problem is you've got 16 schools and 15 other schools in the SEC that have great coaches, great players, and you look at the schedule that we have next year and, you know, the first two out of three games, Utah at Utah and Georgia at home, I mean it's it's really tough to win in this league.

Yeah.

Speaking of Utah you know talk about another program that just got a massive financial boost.

And you know that's what it kind of takes.

And I think that, you know, while Arkansas fans are right to be discouraged about the finances and thinking, well, will this work?

Can we make this, can we win, you know, at a lower cost?

And, we've always kind of had that mentality.

But I think the thing about Silver Field is, is that he is a proven winner.

And Memphis has been a steady, solid program for years after it had been in the dumps.

To the extent that he play a part in a rebuild, that's what this is.

So I think you have to give him a fair chance.

I think that fair chance is probably three years.

Unless you really, really dropped the ball as a certain Chad Morris did.

But I think you can get I think you can get a lot of, of, mileage out of a coach like this because he is the first coach that we've hired that is younger than I am.

So I'm excited about that.

So.

And, you know, Ohio State is not invincible.

Wasn't this it.

That's right.

Indiana.

Yeah.

Worst team in the history of college football now has gone to the playoffs two years in a row.

It's one of the most amazing stories ever.

And you didn't talk.

You didn't say football.

When you think of Indy, when you say Indiana.

And so that's been a great story.

Inspirational for other teams.

All right guys, there's Bo.

You will be back.

Thank you.

Stay and have a great Christmas holiday.

You take care to and we'll be right back.

And we are back.

Our state has consistently lagged badly in terms of maternal and infant outcomes.

Indeed, we are almost invariably among the bottom five states in key indices of pre and post natal well-being.

Improvements won't be fast or easy or inexpensive.

So the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences is using the almost $12 million grant that it's been awarded to create its Maternal and Reproductive Health Research Center March.

It's called.

Joining us with more on the program is doctor Pearl McKell, office director of the UAMs Community Health Innovation Center.

And doctor, we thank you very much for being with us.

Research is kind of a broad term there.

We are researching what.

Really maternal and reproductive health with a focus on specifically translational research.

And so that's going to include researching policies and practices that can really shift health outcomes.

And so much of our previous research in this state has been focused on disparities.

And some of the negative aspects that we know about maternal and infant health, but we really want to bolster the research that is going to be finding innovative solutions with the March Center.

And so really excited to begin to look at how we can shift and measure the outcomes that we're seeing in maternal and reproductive health.

Are we targeting here with the research going going into the project, are we targeting a certain demographic in terms of, of ethnicity, of age, of geography?

So really, we want to serve all women of reproductive age.

I would say if there is a target, it is to be inclusive of rural populations.

Far too much research across the in the United States has really been focused on more urban populations.

In a state like Arkansas, where almost half of babies are born in rural areas, or to women who reside in rural areas.

It's really critical to have research that is very inclusive of meeting rural women's needs, and also with the understanding that the solutions for, addressing health disparities in maternal and reproductive health for rural women may be slightly different innovations than for urban women.

And so we will have a dedicated focus on reaching women who may traditionally be left out of research, with a focus on rural women, what the absence of of pre and post natal care in, in, in rural Arkansas is an established fact.

I mean, there's a shortage of providers, practically everywhere.

How will this research fit into that?

I mean, we're talking about more a distance of consultation or.

Yeah, it's a great question.

I think it will be researching, things like wearable technology and remote monitoring.

One of the things I'm so pleased about is that the state passed legislation in the last session to focus or to reimburse for remote monitoring for blood pressure during pregnancy and postpartum.

That's fabulous.

But we still need to have better evidence on what's going to work.

What types of technology or combinations of technology are going to work when broadband is limited, or what methods are really going to reach rural women?

Telemedicine, again, is such an important component of reaching for women.

But one of the things we often don't think about is alternative providers.

And I believe, and we will be researching, how can a company of nurse midwives and do community health workers and other types of providers come around your traditional physician OB physician, and really researching how some of those solutions can reach rural women?

One of the things I'm most excited about is our family medicine obstetrical program.

And this is where a family medicine doctor is trained to do C-sections and really the full range of obstetrical pair with an obstetrical fellowship.

And so we hope to research things like, can these types of providers in partnership with a traditional ob gyn, or can they reach and provide appropriate care to rural?

And since, and I'm quite certain that they can, other national research has demonstrated that we now need to implement and research that in Arkansas you have spoken of creating through this project a or establishing a I think it's your term, a pipeline of researchers.

So it is not necessarily a one shot undertaking.

Yes.

I mean, this is a pivotal point in my career where I have been searching for almost 20 years and I've accomplished a lot.

And through the March Center, it will be really focusing on new junior faculty.

And so researchers that maybe have done a little better for search, but really are growing in their career and focus on them, how can we bolster their training and the resources that they have so that they will spend the next 20 years researching maternal and reproductive health in rural populations, specifically in Arkansas?

So really is about building that capacity.

I want Arkansas to be known as the best state for innovation in addressing maternal and reproductive health.

And if we can build up the capacity of our junior researchers, I'm confident that we can make that shift.

Looking at the situation as it stands now, the the absence or the shortage anyway of pre and post natal, is there an overriding and what what is problem number one in those areas?

And with those moms who who lack adequate care.

I mean is it prenatal nutrition or lifestyle or what.

What are we talking about here?

I think one of the biggest challenges is it's not just one thing.

It's a combination of multiple things.

But if I were to prioritize, one thing I would say is meeting women where they are.

For far too long, we have expected rural women to drive into a more urban center, to receive care and with transportation constraints and other financial constraints, that just isn't working.

And so we see women getting late, prenatal care or no prenatal care or not seeing the physician as often as they should.

And that's why this combination of wearable technologies, telemedicine.

And again, I want to emphasize nurse midwives, professional midwives, doulas, community health workers and family practice physicians who are in those rural communities and who we will be much more successful in building up their numbers in rural communities.

If we can focus on meeting women where they are in their rural communities, I think we will see shifts.

If we continue to only focus on getting women to serve the more urban centers, I think we will not be successful.

And so I trust the March Center.

We will be focused on how can we bring the best innovation to women where they are with the no one wants to put a dollar value on human life, whether it's mom or our infinite infant, but the fact of the matter is failing to address this problem, failing to do something about our poor standing or the lack of care, it is horrendously expensive.

The absence of care is expensive.

Absolutely.

As you said, every life as a mom of a baby is in some way immeasurable.

However, we do know the economic impact and the economic impact is at least twofold.

You have the economic impact of the cost of a safe and healthy pregnancy, which is about one tenth the cost of a pregnancy that is unhealthy or that becomes high risk.

And so you have that level of cost, but then you also have the cost.

And we can use very precise, monitor very economic numbers of when you have a low birth weight baby, a pre-term birth or a baby that goes to the NEC for for treatment, those become much more costly.

And so one of the things that I am excited that we are doing as a state, and really some shifts that I see across the US are towards primary prevention.

How can we sort, support people and being healthy in the first place so that we can prevent some of those downstream costs?

And so I don't think it's about either focusing on the economics or the personal level, commitments.

The solutions really are important to both economics and taking care of people.

Got into there.

Doctor Pearl McKelvey.

So good luck with the program and thanks for coming on.

Come back soon.

Thank you.

Thank you.

It's always a pleasure.

All right.

That does it for us for this week.

As always we thank you for joining us and see you next time.