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MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Hello, and welcome to Free Speech with CR. I'm your host, Molly Blakemore, and I'm joined with my cohost, Keith Flamer.

KEITH FLAMER: Molly, it's great to be here and especially with our special guest, Ryan Bisio today. Ryan, talk to us about you. We know you as a basketball coach. And now we know you as an athletic director. There's a lot more to you than people realize.

Tell us about you.

RYAN BISIO: Well, I was born here in Eureka. So at General Hospital, which is no longer here. I guess that ages me a little bit.

KEITH FLAMER: Just a little.

RYAN BISIO: Just a teeny bit. Yeah, I went to high school, elementary school. Born and raised here. And I think outside of being an athletic director, which is my current role, I think I consider myself an artist and have always been artistically inclined throughout my life and try to incorporate my love of art, my appreciation of art into the work that I do here at the institution and all the work I do outside of the institution as well,

the way that I cook, the way that I live my life. I try to live an artistic lifestyle. And I think that's probably something about me that speaks to who I really am.

KEITH FLAMER: So are you a chef?

RYAN BISIO: I'm an aspiring chef.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, OK.

RYAN BISIO: I learned how to cook a little bit in Denmark. Danish cuisine is not necessarily what they're known for. But that's where I started to find my own voice in the kitchen, as it were, more out of necessity, and then started to engage my creativity in that way.

KEITH FLAMER: Talk to us about your music, though.

RYAN BISIO: Yeah, I've had a 20-year career at this point as a performing artist, a singer-songwriter. I was just speaking to the gentleman about ASCAP, which is a publishing company that I'm-- a performance rights company that I'm associated with. Yeah, I've recorded nine studio releases up to this point. I've toured extensively through the Czech Republic and Denmark, along as well as the West Coast.

My degree is in contemporary music with an emphasis on jazz studies. So I have a theoretical background in it. I was trained as a classical pianist, started playing piano as a six-year-old kid. It's a tangent, but I won the piano as a gold medalist in the Junior Olympics in the sport of bowling.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: [INAUDIBLE] a piano. The piano was your prize?

RYAN BISIO: A Yamaha.

KEITH FLAMER: That's what you meant to say.

RYAN BISIO: Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: I couldn't make the connection between piano and [INAUDIBLE]

RYAN BISIO: Yeah, that's sports and music. Even as a six-year-old, they were somehow connected even roughly 40 years ago.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And are you still a bowler?

KEITH FLAMER: No, he's a baller. He's no longer a bowler.

RYAN BISIO: Sadly, I'm not. But my dad is still very active at Harbor Lanes here in Eureka.

KEITH FLAMER: Your father is. I did that-- if I would have known that, I'd mentioned something to him.

RYAN BISIO: Yeah, yeah. As Dr. Flamer knows, my dad loves Peanut M&Ms.

KEITH FLAMER: Yes, he does.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: My dad too. He did.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, wow.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Favorite thing.

RYAN BISIO: Oh. Pretty much an everyday thing. And I know he eats some at Harbor Lanes. And he's in the Thursday night league and--

but yeah, he's what got me into bowling. And then all of a sudden there's a piano in our house. And then all of a sudden I'm exploring music and using that as a real guiding light in all of my other endeavors from then on out.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And when you're touring in the Czech Republic, is it just you, or were you with a band? Or was it--?

RYAN BISIO: I was performing as a solo artist at that time. I was riding the coattails of the British artist Jamie Marshall, a very successful songwriter from a bit of an older generation. We got linked up in Prague and then went around the country. And I got to see the Czech Republic at a very interesting time.

And a very unique country with a history that is really unlike a lot of countries in Europe. Prague, one of the only cities in Europe that was untouched in all of the wars, it's just a magical place. I lived in Prague in 2014, so I still dream in that city from time to time. And it really shaped a lot of the music that I was making at that particular time.

KEITH FLAMER: So how did you get into basketball? Because that's how I first met you as a basketball coach.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And that's probably how most people in the county know you, right?

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah, exactly.

RYAN BISIO: Yeah, whether it be as a player and a coach, I started playing basketball as a very young child. He wasn't my paternal grandfather, but the person who stepped up and became my grandfather when my grandfather passed away when I was a baby was Lou Bonomini, who was the founder of the Humboldt Crabs. There's a lot of Italian folks who used to live on the south side of Eureka. It would be very common to hear Italian spoken just outside in that area at that time.

He built a basketball hoop in our driveway. And I just fell in love with just shooting hoops and making up an imaginary scenarios. And people would drive by and honk, and I'd wave. And I just for some reason, there was an expression to that sport which felt like I could express my personality and use that vehicle more than other sports like baseball and others that I was into at the time.

Yeah. Thank you. Walked into that one.

KEITH FLAMER: You did. You did.

RYAN BISIO: Yeah, so-- yeah, I was a self-made player. I mean, I didn't win the genetic lottery. I mean, I'm 5' 9." I don't look like a basketball player necessarily, but had a great high school career, got a scholarship to play university.

KEITH FLAMER: You went to high school where?

RYAN BISIO: I went to St. Bernard's.

KEITH FLAMER: St. Bernard's. OK.

RYAN BISIO: Yeah. And then went to-- I got a scholarship to go to College of Notre Dame, which is in Belmont. No longer a school. I then transferred to Santa Rosa Junior College and had a transformational experience there, which really opened my eyes to the importance of community college and what it does for kids' lives at that particular junction in their lives.

I had incredible coaching, incredible guidance. I then received a scholarship to Cal State Monterey Bay, where I studied music and lived on the peninsula at a great time in its own music history. Monterey has an incredible legacy of music. And then from Cal State Monterey Bay, I received a professional contract to play basketball in Copenhagen, Denmark. And that's how I ended up getting to Denmark and subsequently started my coaching career there, because I'd been in the country for about eight hours; and I broke my hand in our first practice.

But I had signed the contract hours earlier, so they're like, well, we're stuck with this guy. We got to get something out of this guy. And that's how I started to coach.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: OK.

KEITH FLAMER: In Denmark.

RYAN BISIO: Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: Ryan, one of the first times I met you, I was in one of your practices, just sitting and watching and listening. You coach like an artist. You started explaining the plays like you're explaining musical notes. Talk to us about how you integrate the music side of you, the artist side of you, into coaching basketball and what is that supposed to do.

RYAN BISIO: Oh, I really appreciate that question. This is the thing I love talking about so much. The fundamentals of the game of basketball, in my view, are musical. And musical theory, musical terminology I've found is a great way to teach the sport. And I believe that the sport itself responds very positively to musical kind of awareness.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So is there a way you can give us a concrete example of that when you're coaching, how that would translate?

RYAN BISIO: Yeah, so rhythm is a very key fundamental musical element. We all know what rhythm is. We feel it. Even if we don't have prior musical training, we can feel if our rhythms are being violated.

In basketball, a way to assert rhythm would be to simply call a time-out and just stop the game. So that's a very strong-- that's from a coaching perspective. That's a very strong rhythmic note that you can insert into a composition.

KEITH FLAMER: Of a game.

RYAN BISIO: Yeah.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And you could throw the other team off-balance that way.

RYAN BISIO: Correct. And that's how you can disrupt game flow. I feel as people, I think we underestimate how much we primitively understand about music. Our lives are dependent upon our mother's heartbeat when we're in the womb. The seasons change in 4/4 time, which is the most fundamental time signature in music.

I think when we are having a discussion with each other, when we feel like we're really vibing, we know what harmony and consonance feels like. When we're having an awkward encounter, we can feel disharmony. So many of these really fundamental things, when they're very simply applied to basketball, I think they give folks a more sensory experience of the game, and it's less about the analytics and more about getting back to real, bedrock principles that allow you to feel what's happening in a way that's very fascinating to me, and actually just like the simplest way to approach it too.

It's not like anti-analytics because a lot of the analytics actually prove the very primitive point that I'm trying to make about having basketball as a sensory expression, an art form.

KEITH FLAMER: That explains a lot about you, because I was trying to figure out-- I've watched you with people. And you have a rhythm to your tone of voice. And I've seen the rhythm of the communication between you and anyone. And now I better understand that 4/4 time, and that you're able to really understand and listen.

And you always pause after someone says anything. And you think about it. Most humans always have a response ready when you're done speaking. And you have a great ability to listen really well--

RYAN BISIO: I appreciate that.

KEITH FLAMER: --and to pause and say, I think I understand this. And you just get into the conversation extremely adeptly.

RYAN BISIO: Thank you.

KEITH FLAMER: Now I understand how and why you do that.

RYAN BISIO: I love jazz. And jazz is often played in many different time signatures. And so is basketball. You watch a game, and there's competing time signatures. And how is it going to coalesce and sort itself out?

And like the masters of rhythm are the ones who can still play when no one's quite in control of it. It's a--

KEITH FLAMER: What do you mean by that? Explain that a little bit.

RYAN BISIO: The ability to navigate different rhythms and make it musical. Somebody might be speaking to you in a different tempo, but how can you create harmony with that person and create music with them, whether it's through conversation, whether it's through whatever you're working on, with those same bedrock principles.

My favorite musical principle is tone. I think you could say something very nice. You could say something very impolite. Tone is everything. And you can deliver some really bad news with the right tone. [CHUCKLES]

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah, you can. You're absolutely correct. You're right.

RYAN BISIO: And I use-- not to belabor the musical point here, but Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan, two of my favorite guitar players, they both play the same song, "Voodoo Child."

KEITH FLAMER: And I've heard them both.

RYAN BISIO: You've heard them both.

KEITH FLAMER: [INAUDIBLE] Yeah.

RYAN BISIO: There's something about-- they can play note for note exactly like each other, but there's something about Stevie Ray's tone which I identify with more because he uses thicker gauge strings. So even two people competing and playing the same exact thing, one is going to have a tone that maybe latches onto the taste buds of the listener more than another. I'm just fascinated by those elements.

KEITH FLAMER: Now, you made me very curious about something. So you use music in coaching. And you did extremely well. You're very good at it.

And now you have a new role. Now you're the athletic director of a massively expanding program. So how do you translate the art, the music, and how now you direct fellow coaches? And they all have different personalities, for sure.

RYAN BISIO: Yeah, I'm learning on the fly what type of musicality is going to help our department reach its fullest potential. I think on the topic of tone, that's a very important one. Now, instead of managing kids who are trying to navigate their way into adult life, you're managing adults who in some ways are trying to do the same thing, but it's not--

they've already had the college experience. These are adults that we're managing. So tone is really, really important. As I'm finding the internal rhythms of this job, I feel like I'm starting to really feel them in a way that's going to allow me to just do my best work for our staff and for these kids.

Harmony-- I'm a sucker for harmony. I think we can feel it when there's a string that needs to be tuned up. You know what I mean? So that the instrument itself can function as it's meant to.

I've been described as-- I don't know if this is true or not, as a human tuner. So--

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, I like that. That's right.

RYAN BISIO: You just try to get to each person and just get them in their optimal tuning so we can play the instrument of the department.

KEITH FLAMER: You have just described what leaders are supposed to do, regardless of the sector in which they're leading. It's to fine-tune everyone so they're all playing the same music. Yeah, the same-- yeah, that's exactly what leaders are supposed to do.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And coaches.

KEITH FLAMER: Yeah, absolutely.

RYAN BISIO: I believe that. And I also believe if the instrument, if you can't tune it, then just pick it up and bang it like a drum and at least do something rhythmic with it.

KEITH FLAMER: I'm not sure how to translate that into that, Ryan, but that's what-- I understand the concept.

RYAN BISIO: But yeah, make it musical. But I appreciate your perspective on that. And I do agree that leaders in all roles-- and they're trying to get their folks to become the best versions of themselves. And it's difficult to do that if you're out of tune, personally. So I think as a leader, we all try to make sure that we're doing the best we can to keep ourselves in tune so we can lead others.

I think folks understand these kind of music concepts more than they realize. If your leaders are running hot and a little out of tune, it actually gives people a little anxiety know. So--

KEITH FLAMER: I've seen that. Yeah.

RYAN BISIO: --try your best to be in tune, so then you can help others get in tune so they can produce their highest quality work. That's an ethos that we-- and we talk very openly about that in our department, about being in tune with each other, about really listening to each other so we can then play the right notes and complement each other well.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Well, and you also have the same language of being coaches and teammates. And so that probably translates more easily than some other venues where you're not coaching coaches, you're coaching people who aren't used to that team spirit, maybe.

RYAN BISIO: Right. And you guys are both leaders. Dr. Flamer, as the president of the institution, I guarantee you've seen how your leadership style then affects the campus all the way down.

KEITH FLAMER: You see that.

RYAN BISIO: It's not only about setting a tone, but it's also tuning folks. So then all the way down the chain that everybody is doing their highest quality work and affecting people at every level of the institution. And that's what I love working. That's why I love working here so much because you go around this campus and you see all of our leaders just doing such quality work, not only for their staffs, but also it trickles down to the kids, which is why we're here.

This is why we work here, is for the kids. And I love that. I love that about working here.

KEITH FLAMER: What has been one of the joys of your new role as the athletic director, Ryan? And also, on the flip side, what was the thing that you did not expect?

RYAN BISIO: I love having access to more students. As a basketball coach, you got the 20 kids in your program. You have a major day-to-day impact on their lives. And they can walk in the gym, and you can tell something's a little off or something might have happened, that it's like you're so sensitive to every person in that room.

Now, I can impact more kids than just my own team. And I really love that about the job. Before, I wasn't really talking to the football players and the women's soccer players and the wrestlers and stuff like that, because you're trying to win games, you're focused on your team.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: So you do that a lot. You're like at all the games, and you're talking to all this dude.

RYAN BISIO: Every kid that enters our building, I want to know what kind of experience they're having. I want to give them a shot of confidence. I want to let them know that they're seen, but by that, I personally appreciate them being here. And I didn't really have the--

I guess you could do that as a basketball coach, but it's a little out of place. Now it's like I just love being able to access more of the students in our building. And I love that about this job.

I think one of the unexpected things was how many weekends it is. I mean, I know we're playing on the weekends, but until you're overseeing all the events, it's like, OK, so it's every weekend.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: I was going to say [INAUDIBLE] meeting all these students, that must be a lot of times is a time commitment.

RYAN BISIO: Yeah. But when you love sports, when you love human interaction, it's like it's so fun.

KEITH FLAMER: Yes.

RYAN BISIO: Like I'm a junkie for sports. I mean, there's not a sporting event that I'm at where I'm not just loving, feeling the energy coming from the kids, from the crowd, from just like what it all means. It's just feel like I was born to do it.

KEITH FLAMER: Well, you have overseen a department that is expanding every year. So how big is the part? How much have you actually grown, and what would you attribute that growth to?

RYAN BISIO: Well, we were at 316 student athletes this fall, which was the highest we've ever had in school history. The previous high was last fall when we had about 265. So we've seen like exponential growth.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Since the beginning of the college, it's the biggest?

RYAN BISIO: Yeah. Yeah. And not only that. This is the most sport offerings we've had, too, up to 16. So we're able to service a wider demographic of students with all of our offerings right now.

And I think some of the successes that our programs have had-- and this is on the backs of our coaches just in their recruiting efforts and building programs that are not only attractive but appear sustainable and have competitive successes. We're able to continue hopefully growing our student population and growing as many positive outcomes for kids as possible. Of course, we want to graduate every single kid that comes in that building. So that's a primary focus too.

I do want to give a shout-out to Bob Brown. My predecessor, the previous AD, he oversaw our department at a time through COVID, through many different things that could have really sidetracked us. But he steadied us. I think he hired the right coaches at the right time to build the programs, which then attracted more kids. And I'm benefiting from a lot of really good decision-making from him and the staff that he led during his time.

So I believe that to be true as well.

KEITH FLAMER: Ryan, I know that you just came back from a weekend of rodeo. Talk to us about your experience with the Poly Royal.

RYAN BISIO: Transformational.

KEITH FLAMER: Is that right?

RYAN BISIO: Yeah. I was shocked how much fun I had. Not to say I underestimated how fun the rodeo was. I just had never experienced one.

College rodeo, the pageantry. So many good folks and just a sporting event that-- it just blew my mind.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Where was it?

RYAN BISIO: It was at Cal Poly San Luis Obispo. It's called Poly Royal. And you're talking 8, 10,000 people in a football stadium celebrating rodeo. And I just had this vision of our kids' College of the Redwoods getting called out in the main arena like that. And I saw it in a totally different way.

KEITH FLAMER: We had three kids competing.

RYAN BISIO: We had three kids competing, and they didn't quite qualify to get into the main arena and the main show. One of our competitors, Feather River College, had quite a few kids in that event. And I thought to myself, to hear the name College of the Redwoods in front of 10,000 people like this in a venue like this, it's got to happen.

What an experience for these kids. What PR for the college. I mean, this is big-time athletics. And I just--

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: This is our inaugural year, right? This is--

KEITH FLAMER: The first year with rodeo.

RYAN BISIO: This is our first year. So we're building a program that we hope will sustainably participate in Poly Royal and produce great outcomes, competitive outcomes, and attract hopefully rodeo kids up here by the dozens. That's the hope.

KEITH FLAMER: Wonderful.

RYAN BISIO: Yeah.

KEITH FLAMER: What things did you want the audience to take away from your experiences here at CR?

RYAN BISIO: That when you work here, you're surrounded by so many great people. It's the people that make this institution run in the way that it is right now. I feel like we're in a really, really good place. And across this campus, there are really talented, thoughtful, well-rounded people and leaders.

And I think if you're a student here, I would think that you would feel that as well. And I think that's reflected obviously just in our population growth overall. But this is a great time to come to school at College of the Redwoods and a great time to work here. I'm proud to work here.

KEITH FLAMER: We are glad to have you.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And we're about to wrap, but I wanted to let everyone know that Ryan does our theme music for this podcast.

KEITH FLAMER: Oh, that's right. Yeah, that's right. It's good.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: If you are watching or listening and you can rewind, take it back to the beginning and listen to his track on that. And then also, I was just wondering if you wanted to talk a little bit about your book that you just finished.

RYAN BISIO: Yes. Thank you for that plug. That song is called "Deep Fake." It's probably just an instrumental, but it's about my deep consternation of deepfake video technology.

KEITH FLAMER: I did not know that actually. OK.

RYAN BISIO: Yes. The book is titled Musicality of the Game. I believe it's going to be released this mid-fall in time for those stocking stuffers. And it is about how you can teach the game of basketball, watch the game, observe the game, organize the game with musical principles and theories. And it's my life's work, and I'm very proud to be talking about it with you both.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And where will we be able to get it?

RYAN BISIO: Anywhere online. Kindle, Amazon. There's going to be also some hardcovers that can be purchased through my website and through other entities as well.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: And then what about if we wanted to listen to your music?

RYAN BISIO: Yes. My name is Ryan Bisio, B-I-S-I-O. And my music is available at Apple Music, Spotify, wherever you get your online music, and it is available at local record stores here in our area.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Are you touring anymore?

RYAN BISIO: I'm not touring right now, but I am recording a studio album, a double album. And I'm about 70% of the way through it, and I just love working on it. When I get home from work, that's what I do.

KEITH FLAMER: Wonderful. Thank you.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: Yes.

KEITH FLAMER: We have had the opportunity of speaking to two, maybe a few celebrated offers, on the show. You're one of them.

RYAN BISIO: JB.

KEITH FLAMER: JB was the other one. Every time we have this conversation with CR colleagues, it simply amazes me of the work they do outside of what you see. And you and JB are so accomplished outside of what you do for the institution. And it is just-- it's gratifying.

And I want to acknowledge how good you and JB are, not just to the college, but what example you're setting for our students is they, too, can do what you do. You are one of them. And that's a message that I want to always let people know about it.

RYAN BISIO: It's a very generous perspective. Thank you for that.

KEITH FLAMER: It's very true.

MOLLY BLAKEMORE: This has been Free Speech with CR. Thank you for joining us, and we look forward to seeing you again in the future.

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