Speaker 1: I welcome to episode one sixteen of the Bobby Cast.
Speaker 1: This guest is Scott Hamilton's who won the Olympic gold back.
Speaker 1: We talked about adopting and by the way, A Namy
Speaker 1: isn't here for this pre thing cause we just I'm
Speaker 1: doing the pre show before. Well, but yeah, and we
Speaker 1: talked about you in this coming up podcast because his
Speaker 1: wife is your mentor. Yes, because they adopted two older
Speaker 1: kids from Haiti, and so did we, so they've been
Speaker 1: a huge help to us. So not only is it
Speaker 1: super inspirational, but it gets really cool too because we're talking.
Speaker 1: We start talking about I don't want to ruin it,
Speaker 1: but when he came back, he's, like he said, overnight
Speaker 1: he was nobody who he came back from the Olympics
Speaker 1: and then his five thousand people waiting for him. It's crazy.
Speaker 1: So Scott Hamilton's uh. And the first time I knew
Speaker 1: of Scott Hamilton, I wasn't alive. I guess I wasn't alive,
Speaker 1: but I was little. I don't know him from that,
Speaker 1: but I know him from something else, and that's what
Speaker 1: I told him. You'll see, you'll hear it. This is
Speaker 1: episode one sixteen of the Bobby Cast. He has a
Speaker 1: book called Finished First, Winning Changes Everything. Other Podcas has
Speaker 1: to check out include Velvet's Edge with Kelly Henderson, her
Speaker 1: latest episodes, up with Amy, which is why I have
Speaker 1: Amy here. You guys can talk about all kinds of
Speaker 1: stuff on Everything Bobby, Yes, you want disgust, There we go.
Speaker 1: There's also Good Company with Jaco and Jake's got a podcast,
Speaker 1: Uh He's got a funny with his mom, and then
Speaker 1: geeking Out with Christian Bush. Upcoming guests of this here
Speaker 1: include Kimberly Slatman from a Little Big Town, Jason al Dean, writer,
Speaker 1: Jesse Fraser, Ashley Gorley. Yeah, it's like if somebody else
Speaker 1: to it forgetting that's coming as a that's a big deal. Yeah,
Speaker 1: a lot of a lot of people come by. So
Speaker 1: there you go. This is episode one sixteen. Tell your
Speaker 1: friends about the Bobby Cast if you like it. This
Speaker 1: is Scott Hamilton's all right, Welcome to another episode of
Speaker 1: the Bobby Cast with Scott Hamilton's someone that you know.
Speaker 1: It's been cool for me getting to know you over
Speaker 1: the past couple of years. You've been on the show
Speaker 1: a couple of times. You were introducing into my personal
Speaker 1: life through Amy, yes, and through her adoption process, because
Speaker 1: she calls your wife her mentor. You know, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: almost like sister in crime. You know, it's it's a
Speaker 1: tough process, you know that navigating all the politics and
Speaker 1: you know, just the enormity of what international adoption is,
Speaker 1: especially in Haiti. I mean, man, that's a that's a
Speaker 1: complicated place. We were talking about this morning. Amy and
Speaker 1: I were and I had mentioned San Tracy, your wife,
Speaker 1: and I can see her name right, Okay, that's right here,
Speaker 1: and she was like, yeah, Tracy's my mentor. She's been
Speaker 1: my mentor through the adoption process. And it was the
Speaker 1: first time I heard Amy describe her as that. I
Speaker 1: knew that you guys have helped and that's how I've
Speaker 1: got to know you guys, But I didn't know that
Speaker 1: she actually considered her like the person that she looked
Speaker 1: up to. Well, I think and when you're doing something
Speaker 1: like that, especially you know, um, Amy and Ben went
Speaker 1: from zero to two older kids. You know, they don't
Speaker 1: get him as babies. It's you know, there's a lot
Speaker 1: of challenges that come with that. Kids are imprinted wherever
Speaker 1: they are and that's their behavior, that's their code and
Speaker 1: then when you got language barriers and everything else, you
Speaker 1: need somebody that's gonna stand with you in a situation
Speaker 1: like that. You know, it's kind of been there, done that,
Speaker 1: and I think Tracy has really been. Um. I think
Speaker 1: it means a lot to Tracy to be able to
Speaker 1: offer that to Amy. Just getting through it and there's
Speaker 1: tough days, you know, even if it's it's perfect right.
Speaker 1: And you know, birth children and you know we brought
Speaker 1: them up since you know you're gonna have those those
Speaker 1: bumpy parts, and um, you know we've seen that all
Speaker 1: the way through with not only our two birth children,
Speaker 1: but are too adopted children from Haiti. It's it's a
Speaker 1: wild ride. And you know, I I've lived through enough
Speaker 1: where I can kind of like you know, live with
Speaker 1: more than an open hand and say, Okay, that wasn't
Speaker 1: a great choice. Let's let's talk about when you know
Speaker 1: through a little bit and uh, you know, Tracy is
Speaker 1: much more you know, direct, and you know we're gonna
Speaker 1: take this, nip it in the bud and move on.
Speaker 1: It's like okay, okay, uh, you're the boss. Listen, I'm
Speaker 1: glad you're here. You and Trace are super nice, but
Speaker 1: you know, you have such interesting life. And you know,
Speaker 1: the first time I was introduced to you. So I
Speaker 1: was born in the eighties, so I didn't get to
Speaker 1: see you when the gold medal, right, but you know
Speaker 1: how I was introduced to you was watching you come
Speaker 1: in at the end of Roseanne and whenever you were
Speaker 1: doing the thoughts skating on the kitchen. But I still
Speaker 1: get to I get a check every month for about
Speaker 1: thirty four cents, you know, in residuals for and that
Speaker 1: was the first That's when I started actually looking you
Speaker 1: up and be like, who is this Scott Hamilton's guy
Speaker 1: was so much fun, you know. We um, I was
Speaker 1: really working too hard and there was all this crazy
Speaker 1: stuff going on, and uh, I got a call from
Speaker 1: Roseanne saying we want to do Linoleum socks skating and
Speaker 1: it's like, I'm in, Well, we want to get Vernon Lundquist.
Speaker 1: He's in. Do you think we should ask him first?
Speaker 1: I go, no, no, he's in. So Burne was really
Speaker 1: happy to do it. And then I got um Kevin
Speaker 1: Quinn and I did that that skit and I kept
Speaker 1: running and Kevin all over the place, and uh, he
Speaker 1: was a really niat guy. You know, he had a
Speaker 1: lot of demons that you know, ended up taking him.
Speaker 1: But um, we had a really nice friendship and it
Speaker 1: was really funny doing that because Roseanne's like, that's not funny,
Speaker 1: now do that? No, that does and so uh yeah,
Speaker 1: it was there last show before they broke for Christmas,
Speaker 1: and there was a big party afterwards, and did you
Speaker 1: go to the Roseanne party? Yeah? They let It was fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah what happened at the Roseanne bar rat party because
Speaker 1: that was when the show was really kicking its first time,
Speaker 1: like really doing great. It was. It was awesome. You know,
Speaker 1: everybody with you. Johnny Glacia was there, and then um,
Speaker 1: I ended up with John Goodman. Um that was back,
Speaker 1: you know, a long time ago, and I occasionally might
Speaker 1: misbehave a little bit, and I ended up sitting with
Speaker 1: him like for hours and uh laughing because um uh
Speaker 1: there's a guy that works with Dick Button named Dennis Grimaldi,
Speaker 1: and um, Dennis gave John his starting skating So we
Speaker 1: had that, you know, I had Dick Button on my
Speaker 1: skating side and he had Dennis Grimaldi on the acting side,
Speaker 1: and we just sat there and just laughed about all
Speaker 1: the create the stories of those guys and all the
Speaker 1: partnership and all the shows they produced, and a lot
Speaker 1: of people don't know that. You know, Dick Button created
Speaker 1: Superstars the Superstars, which is the show with that athletic
Speaker 1: competition where they put all the people from all the
Speaker 1: different sports together, all competing one on one. I don't
Speaker 1: remember that show. Oh my god, it was huge. And
Speaker 1: Battle the Network Stars, he didn't. I've seen some Battle
Speaker 1: the Networks was on YouTube, and I guess I'm dating
Speaker 1: myself a bit. I don't know, I'm dating myself. A
Speaker 1: lot of bit went with Superstars on. It was in
Speaker 1: the seventies and eighties, and they would bring in people
Speaker 1: from baseball, football, boxing, basketball, soccer and then all compete
Speaker 1: against each other and in these kind of more Olympic
Speaker 1: kind of sports, and it was it was really entertaining.
Speaker 1: The ratings were huge and people thought, oh, Dick Button
Speaker 1: created that. And you know, Dennis was a big part
Speaker 1: of Dennis's theatrical side and John Goodman I had that
Speaker 1: in common. We just it was fun. It was a
Speaker 1: big night. It's funny you bring up ratings and television
Speaker 1: shows from back even when I was a kid, there
Speaker 1: weren't there were I or six outlets, and so everything
Speaker 1: had a lot of eyeballs, where now there's a million
Speaker 1: outlets and fighting for a few eyeballs on all of them.
Speaker 1: It's been tough. You know, when you look at trust
Speaker 1: real um kind of networks, you know, and it was ABC,
Speaker 1: CBS and NBC and they owned everything, and they were
Speaker 1: just they were burning through money, and it was kind
Speaker 1: of this gigantic, huge, you know, infrastructure that just they
Speaker 1: just printed money. It was just gigantic. And then cable
Speaker 1: television came through and the network guys from we understand it,
Speaker 1: We're kind of stiff armed and say, no, we got this.
Speaker 1: If you want to come on, then you have you're
Speaker 1: gonna have to pay. You know, they're not gonna We're
Speaker 1: not gonna pay you. You're gonna have to pay to
Speaker 1: get on our systems. And it was like wait, wait, wait,
Speaker 1: it's up fair. And then all of a sudden, there's
Speaker 1: all these choices and network television now is a completely
Speaker 1: different business model than it was before. I mean, they
Speaker 1: still have a lot of money, and they still have
Speaker 1: a lot of eyeballs, but it's not nearly what it
Speaker 1: was back when. I mean, we had three stations when
Speaker 1: I was growing up. And here's how old I am.
Speaker 1: We waited until six o'clock when the BC went from
Speaker 1: black and white to color. Wait. So television did that,
Speaker 1: and that's where the Peacock was so amazing, because they
Speaker 1: would do the Peacock would all of a sudden, all
Speaker 1: the colors would come on and would be this wow.
Speaker 1: And you know, my parents were really big into like,
Speaker 1: they loved music, and they and you know it professors
Speaker 1: in school. They love music, and they loved television. They
Speaker 1: loved you know, media and and um. So we had
Speaker 1: this big kind of console in our living room where
Speaker 1: we had a color TV. And it was awesome and
Speaker 1: we're we just sit there and staring and all the
Speaker 1: shows that we used to watch back then. We're just
Speaker 1: so much fun. I didn't know, and I con sider
Speaker 1: myself a TV nerd. I didn't know it went from
Speaker 1: color or from black and white to color in the
Speaker 1: middle of the day. It was read at prime time.
Speaker 1: It was just I guess, right before the news. You know,
Speaker 1: sometimes the news in black and white, and when the
Speaker 1: news was important, like the news it's still a thing,
Speaker 1: you know, the news kind of isn't news anymore. It's opinion.
Speaker 1: It's all these opinion chat shows right where. So you're
Speaker 1: talking about able news, Yeah, I'm talking about I'm even
Speaker 1: talking about the local news. Yeah, the local news used
Speaker 1: to be a big deal. If it bleeds, it leads. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Weather a tiny Arkansas town and the weatherman in Arkansas
Speaker 1: when I was a kid was named ned Permy. He's
Speaker 1: still there. And I'm starstruck by the local lear Rock
Speaker 1: weather guy because the TV local TV news was such
Speaker 1: a big deal where I grew up, I don't So
Speaker 1: where did you grow up? Bowling Green, Ohio? Okay, so
Speaker 1: that's not a big city. It's it was really small.
Speaker 1: Like the joke about Bowling Green is it's in that
Speaker 1: really flat part of Ohio. You can actually stand on
Speaker 1: a chair and see Detroit, Michigan. You know, it's that flat,
Speaker 1: and really, you know it's it's it's a lot of
Speaker 1: farm country. It was a university center, so the population
Speaker 1: was kind of like a third college families, a third locals,
Speaker 1: and a third agriculture. And it was a really odd
Speaker 1: mix growing up and um but you know, it was
Speaker 1: still rooted in the college and so everything we did
Speaker 1: was kind of at the university and all the fun
Speaker 1: things like the ice arena was part of the university
Speaker 1: and and that's where we got started there. But um,
Speaker 1: it's a great way to grow up. You know. We
Speaker 1: had big weather, huge weather, tornadoes coming through there all
Speaker 1: the time, and I remember just be home before the
Speaker 1: tornado hits, pushing my bike because I couldn't ride it
Speaker 1: into the wind. And it was awesome. It was really
Speaker 1: fun to grow up that way. You got a new book,
Speaker 1: Finished First, Winning changes everything. It came back, came out
Speaker 1: back in February, and so tell me what this over
Speaker 1: art because I've read most of it at this point,
Speaker 1: tell me what this overarching theme of Finished First is. Well,
Speaker 1: you know, I've been doing a lot of speaking, a
Speaker 1: lot of you know, and I've done a couple of books,
Speaker 1: and and I was, you know, I really wanted to
Speaker 1: you know there. I felt there was something in there
Speaker 1: that needed, you know, to come out, that that was
Speaker 1: a new platform for me to share. And I sat
Speaker 1: down with Donald Miller, who's an author, and and I
Speaker 1: just said, you know, what do you what do you
Speaker 1: What's what's my next message? And he goes winning, Okay,
Speaker 1: I figured that went out, but what do you mean?
Speaker 1: He goes we live in an in a time where um,
Speaker 1: everything is based on participation, trophies and sparing our you know,
Speaker 1: sparing everybody's feelings, and we don't want to do this
Speaker 1: one to that, and and I really feel like we're
Speaker 1: in trouble. And you know, competition is good. Competition allows us,
Speaker 1: you know, I mean you hear that every day you're
Speaker 1: competing with all these other you know, radio shows and
Speaker 1: YouTube channels, radio show everything. You're competify everything, but it
Speaker 1: makes you better. I mean metal still sharp and steel, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, and better things make me better. So a
Speaker 1: lot of you know that has been pushed out of
Speaker 1: our culture. So we got you know a lot of
Speaker 1: people that are in business looking for you know, how
Speaker 1: do I get better? How do I you know, win
Speaker 1: the next job? Or you know, people in school, how
Speaker 1: do I you know, how do I put myself in
Speaker 1: a great position to succeed? And then you've got you know,
Speaker 1: kids in sports and and I've even found the book
Speaker 1: has a big audience with with senior citizens where they
Speaker 1: go I was given up, and now you've given me
Speaker 1: permission to kind of go do some things I've always
Speaker 1: wanted to do. So you know, the whole idea behind
Speaker 1: Finished First is that you know, we all have dreams, aspirations,
Speaker 1: we all have things that we want to do, we
Speaker 1: all have things that we need to do. You know,
Speaker 1: we all have purpose. We all have talents and skills
Speaker 1: that allow us to do things in a really special
Speaker 1: and remarkable way. But it doesn't just happen. You've got
Speaker 1: to un roll up your sleeves and and you know,
Speaker 1: put the time into really uh advance your you know,
Speaker 1: advance your skills, learn how to lose and win, and
Speaker 1: learn how to you know, put yourself out there. And
Speaker 1: when you do, everything changes. You know, if you're able
Speaker 1: to you know, build that foundation of a million different
Speaker 1: victories of just showing up, of just doing the work
Speaker 1: of being you know, leaving the last one to leave,
Speaker 1: and all those really great concepts of understanding that you're
Speaker 1: not quite who you need to be. And there's probably
Speaker 1: something they're just dying to get out and it's it's
Speaker 1: it's taking stock of your skill set and what you're
Speaker 1: you're drawn to and then being able to leverage that
Speaker 1: into something really significant. And and I've I've always felt
Speaker 1: that when I see people that are kind of can
Speaker 1: bad choices it's like, uh, it's crazy you mentioned so
Speaker 1: the this is not a plug from my book. My
Speaker 1: book comes out in June, my second book, and I
Speaker 1: say it's the least uplifting motivational book ever. It's a
Speaker 1: lot like because I wrote my first book and I
Speaker 1: didn't really have interest in writing a book. I didn't
Speaker 1: and I wanted to write a kid's book, and so
Speaker 1: I ended up they said, hey, the kid's book. It's
Speaker 1: so saturated that market. That don't write a kid's book,
Speaker 1: write a memoir. And I thought, what have I done?
Speaker 1: I haven't won a World Series or a gold medal
Speaker 1: or been on the movie. So I write this book's guy,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, this is just terrible. I think this
Speaker 1: is a turd. That yeah, and it sells like unbelievably,
Speaker 1: and so even it was unbelievable to me, and I
Speaker 1: didn't want to write a second book. It just was
Speaker 1: not going to do it. So I did a Ted
Speaker 1: talk and it was called winning by Losing, okay, and
Speaker 1: so they said, hey, would you write that? I thought,
Speaker 1: that's about the only thing that enters to me. And
Speaker 1: so what you're thing is a lot of what I
Speaker 1: wrote in my book, and how it's if you can't
Speaker 1: do the little things like beyond time, then you can't
Speaker 1: do the big things like stop begging to get the
Speaker 1: big jobs. If you can't do the little jobs right well,
Speaker 1: and it's it's also you know, sometimes we you know,
Speaker 1: I see people that are putting themselves in the wrong place.
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, I know you really want to do that.
Speaker 1: Like I would love to be a rock star. All right, Um,
Speaker 1: too short, too bald, can't sing, can't play an instrument
Speaker 1: that's gonna be Those are challenges. Those are big challenges.
Speaker 1: And so it's like, you know, you find your way,
Speaker 1: you bump around and then you find things. You know.
Speaker 1: I like to tell the story of when I was
Speaker 1: in Korea for the Olympics. Um the venue manager there
Speaker 1: and I got to be really good friends, and he said,
Speaker 1: I want you to talk to my staff because a
Speaker 1: lot of the young Korean people have given up. They're
Speaker 1: just basically told to be obedient, do what we tell
Speaker 1: you to do and you'll be fine. But don't you know,
Speaker 1: it's like they're they're crushing dreams basically as a culture.
Speaker 1: And I gave my little you know, spiel on finished
Speaker 1: first and then a girl came up to me and
Speaker 1: she was about eighteen. I guess, and she goes, I
Speaker 1: don't understand what you mean about purpose? And I go
Speaker 1: really well, I mean, what do you mean? He shows
Speaker 1: I'm not good at anything? And she said it just
Speaker 1: like that. And it's like, who's who's pouring into this
Speaker 1: girl that she's not good at anything? And so I go, well,
Speaker 1: let's just break it down. I go, what do you
Speaker 1: like to do? What brings you joy? And she goes,
Speaker 1: I like to read? And I go, wow, what do
Speaker 1: you read? And she goes, well, the last two books
Speaker 1: I read where Jane Eyre and Withering Heights, And I go, oh,
Speaker 1: you like the classics? And I finally got a smile
Speaker 1: out of her and shows I do, and I go,
Speaker 1: maybe you're an author and her eyes just popped. That's
Speaker 1: that little, like, you know, thing of recognition where like that,
Speaker 1: and it was like I felt like I I gave
Speaker 1: her permission to dream just for that second. And maybe
Speaker 1: it was a seed. I don't know, but it's just
Speaker 1: like there are so many people out there just looking
Speaker 1: for direction and looking for a path forward, and you
Speaker 1: know they're stuck behind all these parts. As a patient trophies,
Speaker 1: and we don't want anybody to win or anybody to lose.
Speaker 1: And that's just lazy parenting. You know. It's like when Max,
Speaker 1: my youngest, you know, a great kid, funny you know,
Speaker 1: wants to be a great hockey player. He has Ryan Ellis'
Speaker 1: number on his back because he sees himself as Ryan Ellis,
Speaker 1: all right, because he's a little guy and he wants
Speaker 1: to play d and score and all that stuff. And
Speaker 1: he played his first few games and they got killed.
Speaker 1: I mean, they just got destroyed. And I'm like, buddy,
Speaker 1: what what, what's wrong? And he goes, I don't like
Speaker 1: losing like this. I don't like it. And I go, okay, okay,
Speaker 1: well what did you learn today? And he goes, well,
Speaker 1: I I gotta skate better, and I gotta stick in
Speaker 1: a little bit better. And I want to I want
Speaker 1: to get my shot up. I really want to hit
Speaker 1: that top corner of the net. It's like, that's great, Max,
Speaker 1: what would you have learned if you won? And he
Speaker 1: looked at me like is that a true question? Because
Speaker 1: I don't have an answer. And that's it. I mean,
Speaker 1: if we can learn learn from losing, if we can
Speaker 1: look at losing his information and not this debilitating, horrible,
Speaker 1: painful scar on our psyche. We're probably gonna be better
Speaker 1: up it, like all the haters on Twitter, you know,
Speaker 1: during the Olympics, I got roasted bunch, and so I
Speaker 1: put them all, not all, I put about seven of
Speaker 1: them in a talk I gave to this college leadership program.
Speaker 1: And when I started playing them one after another, these
Speaker 1: college kids were covering their eyes, covering their face, and
Speaker 1: it's like, are you kidding me? This is nothing, you know,
Speaker 1: because criticism comes down to is it fact or is
Speaker 1: it opinion. If it's opinion, you can delete it right away.
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean anything. It's just noise or just nothing.
Speaker 1: And if it's fact, then you've got now you have
Speaker 1: something to work with, right, and you can like totally
Speaker 1: figure out how to deal with that that, you know,
Speaker 1: maybe as a weakness that you can worry, you know,
Speaker 1: worry about and really, you know, sharpen and and get
Speaker 1: better at things. Right. So, when I was skating, dick
Speaker 1: Button was always telling me how bad I was at
Speaker 1: this or how bad I was at that, And so
Speaker 1: my goal every year was to give him one less
Speaker 1: thing to talk about, to the point where if I
Speaker 1: made it to the Olympics and eighty four, he couldn't
Speaker 1: say anything bad about me and that was it. It's like,
Speaker 1: the greatest strength is a lack of weakness where we week,
Speaker 1: that's what we need to work on. And you know, failures,
Speaker 1: information and and and criticism is edited, just edited, And
Speaker 1: it's amazing how powerful that can be for people that
Speaker 1: fear taking that first step forward. You know, part of
Speaker 1: your book is one of the things that I resonated
Speaker 1: with me was we talk about editing your critics. I
Speaker 1: hope I'm staying that right. Edit your credits. It's what
Speaker 1: you're talking about there. But when I was reading it,
Speaker 1: and that was a part to meet the stuck out
Speaker 1: and you and you just hit it. But that's what
Speaker 1: when you're in the public eye or you have a
Speaker 1: job that a lot of people see. It doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be a radio personality, could be the head of
Speaker 1: an office. There are a lot of people with a
Speaker 1: lot of opinions and you have to edit what you're
Speaker 1: going to take in from them because I don't melt you.
Speaker 1: We have right now in US figure skating, there's a
Speaker 1: situation where you have as many as twelve judge, twelve
Speaker 1: judges coming to evaluate your skating. Now, if if I
Speaker 1: were making chicken soup and I had twelve people working
Speaker 1: on the chicken soup, you know, edible, that would be
Speaker 1: it wouldn't be. It would be awful. And oh, you know,
Speaker 1: I need to work with people and how we you know, information,
Speaker 1: how it's given, and and really make it so it's
Speaker 1: it's nutritious and not just a bunch of opinions going
Speaker 1: back and forth, because it confuses people. And these are
Speaker 1: people of authority. So yeah, we have to really look
Speaker 1: at what the information is, how it's coming in, and
Speaker 1: how best we can utilize it. And if we can't,
Speaker 1: it's okay to I give you permission to throw it away. Right.
Speaker 1: I had a judge tell me one time, an international
Speaker 1: and judge, when I'm on that just that little bit
Speaker 1: of a slow pop, you know, I'm starting to kind
Speaker 1: of look like I'm gonna actually be okay. And she said,
Speaker 1: it's really good that Scott's doing better, but he's too
Speaker 1: short to be competitive internationally. And I looked at that
Speaker 1: and I was like, how am I going to fix that?
Speaker 1: It's like, what do you do with that? So I
Speaker 1: realized that that was just opinion because I went back.
Speaker 1: I look back in history and there's a guy in
Speaker 1: nineteen sixty his name was David Jenkins. He was my height,
Speaker 1: and he won the Olympics and three World championships. I go,
Speaker 1: if if David Jenkins can do it, I'll probably be Okay,
Speaker 1: it's it's our you know, it's just somebody's opinion. They
Speaker 1: don't maybe like short skaters. But hopefully she won't be
Speaker 1: on my panel and I'll be able to press on.
Speaker 1: And as it turns out, it was just one judge's opinion.
Speaker 1: And I could have allowed that to, you know, really
Speaker 1: just slay me and knock me down and like I
Speaker 1: might as well quit, you know, But it was one
Speaker 1: of those things where it's just okay, that's good. I
Speaker 1: now know that I have permission to edit what anybody
Speaker 1: tells me, so that I can look at it realistically
Speaker 1: and say, yeah, I need to work on that, or
Speaker 1: that's just somebody's opinion. When you get on social media,
Speaker 1: none of those people would ever say it to your face.
Speaker 1: That's edit number one, finished first Winning changes Everything. Check
Speaker 1: out Scott Hamilton's book, Let Me Talk About one of
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Speaker 1: I have some things that I pulled. You know, it's funny.
Speaker 1: I've never Wikipedia to you. Until this, I've only ever
Speaker 1: socially spoken to you. But so Wikipedia and Wikipedia has
Speaker 1: never write about me. So I don't know how right
Speaker 1: Wikipedia is about you. But the only the thing that
Speaker 1: stuck out to me was, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: this is true or not, but you at the first
Speaker 1: World Championships, you felt like five times that true. My
Speaker 1: first Nationals, ever national Yeah, I came in dead last.
Speaker 1: It was it was, you know, because I looked at
Speaker 1: this and went the gold medal winner at one time
Speaker 1: A lot, no, I a lot, a whole bunch. I
Speaker 1: came into um novice my first Nationals. They scheduled the
Speaker 1: novice men, which is the lowest level event that goes
Speaker 1: to Nationals. They scheduled it as the event right before
Speaker 1: the Senior Ladies Championship. And the single most popular woman
Speaker 1: athlete in the world was Janet Lynn and it was
Speaker 1: her last Nationals. So it was standing room only in
Speaker 1: this build. Everybody was there. Everybody was there, and I
Speaker 1: never saw that many people in my life. I grew
Speaker 1: up in a town of fifteen thousand. I skated as
Speaker 1: in a town of two thousand people, and there's seventeen thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred people in this packed auditorium, and I choked.
Speaker 1: I mean I couldn't even feel my legs. I felt
Speaker 1: five times, came in dead last, and then I thought, okay,
Speaker 1: I'm after I got done crying for like a week,
Speaker 1: I said, I'm gonna go next year. I'm gonna just
Speaker 1: show everybody what I made of. And next year I
Speaker 1: was ninth again, but there were ten guys there. Actually
Speaker 1: get a guy, and so, you know, and I'm killing
Speaker 1: it a novice. You know, might as well move up
Speaker 1: to the junior level because you know, what's the worst
Speaker 1: thing that can happen. I can come in ninth again, right,
Speaker 1: And that summer I got my double axel, which is
Speaker 1: a huge deal, and I actually beat two guys at nationals.
Speaker 1: So I was seventh. That's the best I could do.
Speaker 1: You were seventh, but you were seventh at a higher
Speaker 1: class as well. Well. Yeah, I found a way to
Speaker 1: beat two guys, right, And so, um, the next year,
Speaker 1: my mom was diagnosed with cancer and then she said, UM,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to stop because we're broke, but we
Speaker 1: can get you through this year. But this is it
Speaker 1: your senior year in high school. Um, you know you
Speaker 1: can go out and just get one more year and
Speaker 1: that's it, and then we have to stop because we're
Speaker 1: out of money. And I said, okay. So my main
Speaker 1: coach retired and a new coach came on board, and
Speaker 1: he was kind of a slave driver in a big, long,
Speaker 1: very painful whip and he would crack it all the time.
Speaker 1: And I just said, I got nothing to lose, I
Speaker 1: might as well listen to this guy, and so I
Speaker 1: did everything he told me to do, and I I
Speaker 1: worked really hard, and about two weeks before the Nationals,
Speaker 1: I landed my first triple and he told me in
Speaker 1: the warm up before the long program, he said, don't um,
Speaker 1: don't do it in warm up. We don't want to
Speaker 1: know if it's there or not. Just throwing the program
Speaker 1: if you feel like so, if you feel like it,
Speaker 1: so you have the option to not even try it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I had nothing to lose. It was gonna
Speaker 1: be my last competition ever, and so I figure it's
Speaker 1: my last competition ever, I might as well, and so
Speaker 1: I threw it. And I actually, normally i'd have a
Speaker 1: nice view of the ceiling when I do a jump
Speaker 1: like that, but this time I was standing on one
Speaker 1: foot perfectly landed triple south. Kind I was like, tell
Speaker 1: me about this because you're talking language now that I've seen,
Speaker 1: and they say it, but I'm too uneducated even question
Speaker 1: about it. Well, the triple jump, like it goes up
Speaker 1: from doubles the triple. So doubles are when you rotate
Speaker 1: twice in the air, and then triples are three times
Speaker 1: in the year. So what's the actual of it. The
Speaker 1: axle is only forward takeoffs, so that adds a half
Speaker 1: a revolution to the jump, which makes a little harder.
Speaker 1: So you jump forward, land backward. You always land backwards
Speaker 1: three and a half the Yeah, the jumps are always
Speaker 1: the same in the air and they always land the same,
Speaker 1: so nobody can tell the difference between the jumps. It's
Speaker 1: the takeoff that makes them different, either backward or forward.
Speaker 1: And the axle you start forward and land backward. And
Speaker 1: so to land a triple axle, yeah, three and a
Speaker 1: half turns. That's hard, is it not? Anymore? I mean
Speaker 1: the guys you know, I mean, you can't even get
Speaker 1: out of juniors without a triple axle. It's now it's
Speaker 1: quads um four times four times. And there's guys that
Speaker 1: can do almost every takeoff the quad. There's six different
Speaker 1: takeoffs and each one of them has its own challenges.
Speaker 1: When you were landing your triple, though, is that was
Speaker 1: that a huge deal to the entire community. It was.
Speaker 1: It was kind of where a lot of the guys
Speaker 1: in the event we're doing triples. But I was able
Speaker 1: to kind of entertain a little bit, and I was
Speaker 1: I was probably a little bit better with handling music
Speaker 1: and all in all this clueless about most things. In
Speaker 1: that competition, I landed the triple sund I got to
Speaker 1: the rest of the program clean, and I won Junior Nationals.
Speaker 1: So the year before and then you want and so
Speaker 1: you get to stay, you get a sponsor. That what
Speaker 1: happened was coach saw that I was um winning junior
Speaker 1: Nationals and he goes, I can get I can get
Speaker 1: him a sponsor if he'll come to coach with me
Speaker 1: or take from me. And so the coach that year
Speaker 1: coach Dorothy Hamill and John Curry to Olympic gold medals.
Speaker 1: So I was in pretty good hands. So I just
Speaker 1: moved to Denver. I was sponsored. I turned eighteen that
Speaker 1: summer and the next year was my first year on
Speaker 1: the senior level, and I returned to my old days
Speaker 1: of glory. I wiped up the ice and then came
Speaker 1: in ninth, and uh, what was bad about that was
Speaker 1: that was the last time my mom ever saw me skate.
Speaker 1: And so the morning that I lost her, and she
Speaker 1: was I mean everything to me. She was the center
Speaker 1: of my universe everything. I love this woman. Um. I
Speaker 1: just decided that from then on I was going to
Speaker 1: honor her sacrifice and I was going to be the
Speaker 1: person that she thought I could be. And so I
Speaker 1: took her with me wherever I went. I was always
Speaker 1: accountable to her, and if I was on the ice,
Speaker 1: I worked every harder than I've ever worked. And UM
Speaker 1: ended up getting a really difficult triple um that summer
Speaker 1: that I was so horrific um the previous nationals and
Speaker 1: I went from a ninth the Nationals to third at
Speaker 1: Nationals and then eleventh in the world, and then two
Speaker 1: years later I'm on the Olympic team. So when you
Speaker 1: won the gold, was that your first Olympics? Eighty four?
Speaker 1: And okay, so eight So I came in fifth, So okay,
Speaker 1: that was a finished first for me. That's what I
Speaker 1: was gonna add. So you go to the Olympics and
Speaker 1: eighty like that's gotta be a thing. You know, you're
Speaker 1: talking about your mom, that's gotta be a thing too,
Speaker 1: where you're like, man, like, you just did well, did you?
Speaker 1: And in fifth? Little did you know? Four years now
Speaker 1: I wanted to be eight. I thought if I if
Speaker 1: I came in eighth, that's a win. That's like gigantic.
Speaker 1: How many guys are there? Uh? And I don't even
Speaker 1: remember I was the third guy to three men us
Speaker 1: teams eighth. What was significant about the eighth? You know?
Speaker 1: I just I did the math and I looked at
Speaker 1: all the other skaters, and I thought, if I could
Speaker 1: beat just enough guys, I could come in eighth. I
Speaker 1: never anticipated coming in fifth ever. And then I went
Speaker 1: to Worlds. Right after that, I came in fifth again,
Speaker 1: and so um A month month later, I woke up
Speaker 1: to have breakfast and the top three guys all retired.
Speaker 1: So all I had to do is wake up one
Speaker 1: morning and I'm rank second in the world and rom
Speaker 1: then on it was like, Okay, what do I gotta
Speaker 1: do in order to win? And that was you hate
Speaker 1: compulsory figures. You have to fall in love with your
Speaker 1: weakest element. It was only like I like doing half
Speaker 1: the job. I didn't like doing the other half at all, UM,
Speaker 1: And so I just got to work. And I fell
Speaker 1: in love with compulsory figures. And I don't know what
Speaker 1: they're like, the figure eights, like if you always see
Speaker 1: those figure eights, like when you see people tracing things,
Speaker 1: I can you know, I don't. They don't even really
Speaker 1: exist anymore. But back then that was kind of the
Speaker 1: foundation of all skating. And they're boring because all you
Speaker 1: do is you trace circles for hours. And I hated
Speaker 1: it because it wasn't fun, and so I just had
Speaker 1: to make it a contest with myself and and I
Speaker 1: ended up getting pretty good at figures, and I ended
Speaker 1: up from October nineteen eighty until March of I never
Speaker 1: lost a competition because I figured it out. You figured
Speaker 1: what out? I figured out how to prepare myself to win.
Speaker 1: And and that was after a lot of beta testing
Speaker 1: and losing. You know, my coach was the perfect coach.
Speaker 1: I ended up leaving that um the Olympic champion coach,
Speaker 1: and going to an unknown coach pretty much in Philadelphia,
Speaker 1: and he packaged me and he taught me how to
Speaker 1: discipline myself, and he taught me how to be accountable,
Speaker 1: and he taught me how to show up every day
Speaker 1: with a real um path to winning. And Um, that
Speaker 1: summer I won my first international competition. That I went
Speaker 1: to the Olympics, and then from then on I just
Speaker 1: never lost. Tell me about not so much winning the gold.
Speaker 1: But after you win the gold and you come back home,
Speaker 1: are you famous? Then? Well, you know, here's the deal.
Speaker 1: When I was on my way to Sarajebo, I was
Speaker 1: in Chicago airport and I was reading because we had
Speaker 1: a long day over and I was just like reading
Speaker 1: to kind of relax, and I lost track of time.
Speaker 1: I was like, oh my god. I was like like
Speaker 1: half a concourse away from my gate, and I got
Speaker 1: up and I asked a guy walk and I go,
Speaker 1: what time is it? Can you tell me times? And
Speaker 1: he goes and he just dissed me and walked away,
Speaker 1: and I was like, Okay, that was unpleasant. I can't
Speaker 1: get the time of day on my way to the Olympics.
Speaker 1: It's really rough. And then on the way back, UM,
Speaker 1: I was in baggage claim UM and I ended up
Speaker 1: getting stuck there for two hours signing autographs that quick, no,
Speaker 1: it's overnight. And and then I went back to Denver
Speaker 1: the next day and um, there was a parade through
Speaker 1: downtown Denver and ended up being in Larmer Square. Five
Speaker 1: thousand people were in Larmer Square to welcome you back
Speaker 1: from parade. It's no, it's crazy, it's it was insane.
Speaker 1: So life changes that quickly. The director of the telecast
Speaker 1: for ABC was one of the original um My World
Speaker 1: of Sports guys. You know, his name is Doug Wilson.
Speaker 1: And he said, oh, by the way, your life is
Speaker 1: completely different. And I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah, okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: I got it all right. And I went home and
Speaker 1: sure enough, I you know, i'd want all those years
Speaker 1: and nothing really and then I come back from the
Speaker 1: Olympics and it's like, oh man, this is really different.
Speaker 1: So when you come back and now you're famous, do
Speaker 1: you start to make a little more money when you
Speaker 1: come back, because the people were going, hey, we want
Speaker 1: to give you a deal, a car, that kind of stuff. Well,
Speaker 1: I was broke, like broke. I was living in one
Speaker 1: of my my best friend's parents basement, you know, because
Speaker 1: I didn't have any money, and they just sort of
Speaker 1: looked after me. And then, um, I got a first
Speaker 1: thing was I got an endorsement opportunity for Coca Cola,
Speaker 1: and I didn't really want to miss the World Championships.
Speaker 1: And if I took the endorsement, I realized that that's money.
Speaker 1: Titles are forever. Money is like it goes really fast.
Speaker 1: So I said no to Coca Cola. You can't take money,
Speaker 1: because then you can't. That was then you can now,
Speaker 1: but then then you can't. Couldn't then. So I decided
Speaker 1: to go to the World because I figured if I
Speaker 1: went a fourth World Idol and if I do it
Speaker 1: in Canada against you know, my biggest competitor, then you know,
Speaker 1: I can kind of like, you know, okay, I'm done.
Speaker 1: And um. My first job was with the Ice Capades
Speaker 1: and I was with them for two years. They went
Speaker 1: through a sale and uh, the new owner didn't want
Speaker 1: any guy skaters and so I was let go. So
Speaker 1: you can work, you just can't take money. That was
Speaker 1: during the Olympics. I turned pro right after the World
Speaker 1: Championships that that March. I I went pretty much from
Speaker 1: Worlds to a press conference where I said I'm retiring
Speaker 1: and I'm i'm I'm I'm up forbid. If anybody wants me,
Speaker 1: And at that point there wasn't any guys making money
Speaker 1: and skating, so I had to kind of figure it out.
Speaker 1: And I had a really good agent, UM. He was
Speaker 1: with IMG and he I signed with him because I
Speaker 1: liked him, because I thought he was pretty humble guy.
Speaker 1: But he was also representing UM Chris Everett and my
Speaker 1: favorite athlete in the world, Bjorn Borg. He was representing him,
Speaker 1: and I go, can I meet him? Yes? Absolutely, You're
Speaker 1: my guy. I don't. I just loved his temperament. I
Speaker 1: loved how he always won, and UM, I just there
Speaker 1: was something about him that was just allowed me to
Speaker 1: be calm, cool and collected when I competed, you know,
Speaker 1: because he was kind of a great role model that way.
Speaker 1: It's like you don't have to get all crazy, you
Speaker 1: just do your job. And so UM I signed with
Speaker 1: Bob and then he he did really well and giving
Speaker 1: me some of UM giving me some work. And then
Speaker 1: when I was like from Ice Capades, Bob and I
Speaker 1: sat down and he goes, what do you want to do?
Speaker 1: And I go, let me take my calendar. But they
Speaker 1: let you go. They fired you from Yeah because they
Speaker 1: didn't want any mail skaters. They didn't want a gold
Speaker 1: medal ska. Did you cost too much though? Was that
Speaker 1: just their thing? Like we don't but really it was like,
Speaker 1: well paying too much? Well, you know, they offered me
Speaker 1: one week of shows in Minneapolis, which is the new
Speaker 1: owner's hometown, for one fifth what I was making. And
Speaker 1: I said, I don't really think that's a good idea
Speaker 1: because I got this other opportunity to build a tour.
Speaker 1: It's my tour and um, and he goes, where's your loyalty?
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, good question. So I started a show
Speaker 1: called Stars on Ice and it's still going. I mean
Speaker 1: it was great you started Stars on Ice. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a lot of hard work. It was I was
Speaker 1: unloading trucks when crews didn't show up, and I was
Speaker 1: I was doing everything possible to keep this thing alive. Wow,
Speaker 1: So you started that and it runs, it's doing its
Speaker 1: thing now. Yeah. I don't own it. I just started it.
Speaker 1: I founded it with I am G. I m G
Speaker 1: doesn't really partner with clients, so um, I said, you know, hey,
Speaker 1: just give me half the show and you don't have
Speaker 1: to pay me anything till it's profitable. And they're like, no,
Speaker 1: we don't really want to do that. And it's still out,
Speaker 1: it's still going. I just hosted the NBC television special
Speaker 1: Stars in Ice in Orlando about a month ago, and
Speaker 1: it's a really good show. I'm really proud of the skaters.
Speaker 1: I was reading as I was watching the Olympics. Because
Speaker 1: I grew up in Arkansas. We had a brief winter.
Speaker 1: There was no hockey, and I grew up very poor.
Speaker 1: There was no ice anything, you know, And unless you're
Speaker 1: in a region and where the ice already exists, it
Speaker 1: cost a lot of money to get to ice, if
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Like if I lived in Colorado, I
Speaker 1: wouldn't need to be rich to ski. But because I
Speaker 1: lived in Arkansas, you had to be rich to ski.
Speaker 1: You aren't getting It's called access barriers. Huge access barrier.
Speaker 1: So I didn't know anything. And and I'm learning about
Speaker 1: hockey because the preads over the last five or six years.
Speaker 1: I'm learning, and I'm watching the that that the Winter Olympics,
Speaker 1: and I'm watching the ice skating And what was there
Speaker 1: drama with you and the new broadcast team they were
Speaker 1: making into a whole story. Know what happened? Was um,
Speaker 1: this reporter from the New York Times. Um sat me
Speaker 1: down and at the US Figure Skating Championships in San
Speaker 1: Jose and she goes, I want to know how you
Speaker 1: feel about this change. Because I was the lead analyst
Speaker 1: for NBC for four Olympics and three with NBCO. So UM,
Speaker 1: when Johnny and Tara we did all this stuff in Sochi, Um,
Speaker 1: they just you know, Johnny was really being our but
Speaker 1: it got to be such a huge deal that they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: we need to bring those guys up. And so when
Speaker 1: I left so chi I thought I'm done. I'm never
Speaker 1: gonna do another Olympics. And then they they reached out
Speaker 1: and they said, um, we're gonna move you out of
Speaker 1: the lead commentary position and we're gonna bring them up.
Speaker 1: And I go I figured that was going to happen.
Speaker 1: I'm a smart guy, can see where the tides are going.
Speaker 1: And um, and I go well, and they go, we
Speaker 1: want to keep you and I go, oh why, and
Speaker 1: they go, well, because you know you've done a good
Speaker 1: job for us, we want to keep you around. And
Speaker 1: so the the New York Times reporter was trying to
Speaker 1: she we talked for a long time. She was grilling me,
Speaker 1: and she was waiting for me to crack and say
Speaker 1: this is a horrible thing, and I'm just like going,
Speaker 1: you know what, it's I'm there by their invitation. It's
Speaker 1: not my job, it's their's to give. And you know what,
Speaker 1: when they told me I wasn't gonna be the lead
Speaker 1: analyst anymore, for about ten minutes, I was kind of
Speaker 1: like morning, you know, kind of what was and and
Speaker 1: after that it's like, all right, let's suh, Let's see
Speaker 1: what happens next. And so they brought me to UM
Speaker 1: every nationals from there on to be kind of like
Speaker 1: the voice of I don't know, historical perspective or whatever,
Speaker 1: or to get to the heart of with what the
Speaker 1: competition was. And then UM I went to the Olympics
Speaker 1: and they gave me an hour long pregame show called
Speaker 1: Olympic Ice on NBCSN and it was a blast and
Speaker 1: I loved it. And I got to go to the
Speaker 1: events and watch and not have to be under the
Speaker 1: pressure of having to come up with things to say,
Speaker 1: and it was really great to be able to appreciate
Speaker 1: that and be able to talk about it the next day.
Speaker 1: So you know, it's change is gonna happen. It's just
Speaker 1: like it's much drama as Twitter. Because I was reading it,
Speaker 1: I was like, dry, you know, I don't know enough
Speaker 1: about it. Like I said, I don't know enough about
Speaker 1: the feet the Winter Olympics. That doesn't sound as dramatic
Speaker 1: as they try to make the well. And then with
Speaker 1: the New York Times article was you know I was
Speaker 1: demoted and don't feel sorry for me, and that was
Speaker 1: basically I said. I go, I'm I'm great. I'm just
Speaker 1: I get to be in another Olympic. So I did
Speaker 1: this last Olympics and I was on NBCs N and
Speaker 1: you know, the audience there is much smaller because it's
Speaker 1: a it's a cable kind of situation. And um, one
Speaker 1: of the guys that was kind of with us was
Speaker 1: one of the NBC executives that goes, we're not allowed
Speaker 1: to talk to telling about ratings, and I go, well,
Speaker 1: you don't have to. I don't want to know. I
Speaker 1: don't really care. It doesn't that's kind of gonna change
Speaker 1: my job at all. I'm gonna do the same work.
Speaker 1: And he goes, you're doing five times bigger rating than
Speaker 1: any show that's ever been on this network. And it's like, okay,
Speaker 1: what that that, Okay, what do you do with that? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean it's like nothing. And I thought, well, that's
Speaker 1: really nice. People are and you know, we're at least
Speaker 1: not underperforming, you know, and so that's good. So we
Speaker 1: just did our job and then about him Matt. Three
Speaker 1: weeks after I got back, I got a call from
Speaker 1: NBC and they want me to do another four years.
Speaker 1: Wow is that right? Yeah? So, I mean it's it's like,
Speaker 1: you don't know, it doesn't always have to be exactly
Speaker 1: the way it always was for it to be enjoyable.
Speaker 1: I had a blast in peng Cheng. I really did.
Speaker 1: I love my work. All I did was work, you know.
Speaker 1: I I would do the event in the morning, I
Speaker 1: do the show and then watch the event, and then I,
Speaker 1: um go to practice and watch some practices, and I
Speaker 1: go back grabbed in and then go to my room
Speaker 1: and watch YouTube videos, go through all the protocols of
Speaker 1: all the marks they've got an all year, right down,
Speaker 1: every note, go over the show format, go to bed
Speaker 1: was my existence at the Olympics, and it was awesome
Speaker 1: because when I first got there and um, it was
Speaker 1: kind of wild. I was panicking. I couldn't sleep because
Speaker 1: I don't know enough stuff, Like I don't know. There's
Speaker 1: no way in the world I'm gonna be labeled to
Speaker 1: fraud because I don't know enough stuff to get through
Speaker 1: an hour of television every day for a month. And
Speaker 1: then I looked over and my book was because I
Speaker 1: took it to kind of start promoting it, my book
Speaker 1: was like sitting up staring right at me, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I get to work. So I got to work, and
Speaker 1: it was I used everything that I put in the book,
Speaker 1: and it was like it works, Like it got me
Speaker 1: through that Olympics really well, and I got another four years.
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Speaker 1: ten percent off. So you're talking about going to pyong Chang.
Speaker 1: You're in South Korea? Does that make you nervous that
Speaker 1: North Korea is just right at the time, and you
Speaker 1: know that the news has got attentions and well, the
Speaker 1: thing is is, yeah, if you're here, the news tells
Speaker 1: you that, you know, like and going into socci Jack
Speaker 1: and Jill, the terrorists are going to disrupt the Olympics.
Speaker 1: People are going to die. I was scared to death,
Speaker 1: and then I got there and I looked around, It's like, okay,
Speaker 1: we're good. You know what, it's the same thing with
Speaker 1: you know what our security was at the it called
Speaker 1: the Coastal Cluster, and the Coastal Cluster was all the
Speaker 1: indoor buildings for curling, speed skating, UM, figure skating, UM hockey.
Speaker 1: They were all on this big cluster with a couple
Speaker 1: of sponsor houses and in a big superstore and that
Speaker 1: was the Coastal Cluster. And then all the television, UH
Speaker 1: trucks and everything to cover the event that was all
Speaker 1: on this this Coastal cluster. So going through security every
Speaker 1: single morning, we had to go in through bag and
Speaker 1: mag type of thing. And our security was three college girls.
Speaker 1: That's like my kind of security there. But it's like
Speaker 1: there was no no dogs, no like you know, there
Speaker 1: was no snipers on the roofs, and it was just
Speaker 1: the opposite of what we would expect about what we're seeing.
Speaker 1: And the North Koreans were everywhere. Everywhere you looked, you
Speaker 1: saw the North Korean cheerleaders. The little pair team that
Speaker 1: was from North Korea were so warmly um appreciated by
Speaker 1: the audience and they were really good. And then they
Speaker 1: marched in together under the same flag. How much trouble
Speaker 1: are we gonna have here? Really? I mean, come on,
Speaker 1: none like And it's almost the point where now I
Speaker 1: can't even watch news anymore. I just can't because I
Speaker 1: just there's nothing real about it. It's just it's it's
Speaker 1: almost like they're trying to hook You remember the old
Speaker 1: soap operas. Did you ever watching those old Yeah, So
Speaker 1: back in the day when I was training, I would
Speaker 1: I would go from seven in the morning until about noon,
Speaker 1: and then I go make myself lunch, and then i'd
Speaker 1: watch a couple hours of soap operas to relax because
Speaker 1: I was resting for the night stuff. And you know,
Speaker 1: I would realize that i'd leave to go to competition,
Speaker 1: and I go, oh, I hate to miss this week
Speaker 1: because there was so much that's gonna happen. And I
Speaker 1: came back and it was, oh, nothing happened. And it's
Speaker 1: the same with the recycle. It's like, you know, you
Speaker 1: come back and it's like, oh, yeah, they're still talking
Speaker 1: about that and nothing's really changed. So I don't really
Speaker 1: I don't wait or waste my time anymore, you know,
Speaker 1: because it's it's all meant to kind of. Also, if
Speaker 1: you watch like CNN or MSNBC, or Fox. They all
Speaker 1: have a different point of view and you have to
Speaker 1: have a radical opinion and that's it. And I don't
Speaker 1: have a radical opinions. I have opinions, but they're not radical.
Speaker 1: And if you're not just upset, it's almost like you
Speaker 1: don't have a voice, like the voices that are heard,
Speaker 1: the ones that are I'm so left, I'm so right.
Speaker 1: That's all there is that exists, and you feel like
Speaker 1: you have to be a part of that, and it
Speaker 1: brings people to it. Like I see people gravitate to
Speaker 1: the polar side because they feel like they're supposed to
Speaker 1: be on a side, and I'm going, you don't have
Speaker 1: to do that. I'm not like that. Like I live
Speaker 1: here and I'll go to West Coast to New York
Speaker 1: and all the it's a completely different population, a completely
Speaker 1: different point of view, a completely different sensitive me. It's like, Wow,
Speaker 1: this this is really happening in this country and there's
Speaker 1: no reason, you know. It's like when I was in Sochi,
Speaker 1: we went to lunch at this really expensive place. It
Speaker 1: was on the mountain. You had one day to go
Speaker 1: up to the mountain. We went up. We found this restaurant.
Speaker 1: It was the restaurant to go to, and it was
Speaker 1: me and one of the lead producers from NBC, and
Speaker 1: then next to us was three Russian guys and a
Speaker 1: Korean guy and it was a Korean guy's fiftieth birthday.
Speaker 1: So they're all and the Russian guy we're talking these
Speaker 1: big personalities, big burly guy. And he goes, let me
Speaker 1: ask you something. And when you were a little boy,
Speaker 1: we're about same age, right, And I I think so,
Speaker 1: And he goes, did they teach you to fear us Russians?
Speaker 1: And all I could think of was duck and hover,
Speaker 1: you know, yeah? And I go, yeah, I did pretty much.
Speaker 1: He goes, When I was a little boy, a right,
Speaker 1: probably seem like you. They with bells would ring and
Speaker 1: the teachers would scream it as get down in the basement.
Speaker 1: The Americans are coming to destroy us. He goes, isn't
Speaker 1: it amazing that you and I and just minutes can
Speaker 1: become friends and our leaders act like children. And I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, bing, you know, it's so I don't
Speaker 1: want to get political or anything. Yeah, it's it's meant
Speaker 1: to um. It's to you know, kind of dopamine and
Speaker 1: all that other stuff. And the colors that you all that,
Speaker 1: and you know, it's kind of it seems like I
Speaker 1: don't know, I none of it. It just seems so
Speaker 1: funny to me that I can't participate. I just can't.
Speaker 1: It makes me tired too, because everyone wants my opinion
Speaker 1: on things. I just did this long, three four hour
Speaker 1: interview with the magazine to say, how do you feel politically?
Speaker 1: And I have no problem talking about my politics. People
Speaker 1: just don't come to me from my politics like there's
Speaker 1: a there's a difference if you want to have it,
Speaker 1: and if you want to ask me like, I will
Speaker 1: tell you, but I'm not gonna get on my radio
Speaker 1: show and say. And so they say, hey, did you
Speaker 1: vote for Donald Trump? And I said I did not.
Speaker 1: I said, but I think he's done some things that
Speaker 1: are good and I also think he's other things that
Speaker 1: aren't good. And they were just shocked that someone could
Speaker 1: say both things inside the same paragraph. I said that
Speaker 1: musician will never just be No one's gonna be perfect
Speaker 1: or awful. And I said, I think he's done some
Speaker 1: fantastic some really terrible things, but who is perfect? And
Speaker 1: that's my point. And they were so stunned that I
Speaker 1: didn't just jump on one side and go her or whoo.
Speaker 1: They're like, wow, no one either they don't talk about it,
Speaker 1: or they pick a side. No one ever goes. You know,
Speaker 1: actually there's some duality in this and you know it's
Speaker 1: um I mean, it's crazy. And that's why all I
Speaker 1: really want to do is encourage people. And you are Mr.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you, tell when you're not here. You're
Speaker 1: so inspirational. You come in this show or just let's
Speaker 1: say Amy's Kitchen and we talk. I leave from talking
Speaker 1: to you, and I'm like, man, I'm so inspired you.
Speaker 1: And not just because of your story, but when you
Speaker 1: were a kid, how old were you did you have
Speaker 1: an illness? You couldn't diagnose it, and you didn't you
Speaker 1: didn't grow. I didn't grow for about four years. So
Speaker 1: what was that? Well, you know, they couldn't figure it out,
Speaker 1: and they couldn't figure it out, and then I started
Speaker 1: skating and then all the all of the symptoms went away.
Speaker 1: And then in two thousand four, I had cancer in
Speaker 1: ninety seven, which was chemo and surgery and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: And then in two thousand and four, I'm diagnosed with
Speaker 1: a brain tumor. It's like, oh, come on, I did.
Speaker 1: I did the other thing, right, so as a kid,
Speaker 1: and then you get pesticular cancer and then you get
Speaker 1: a brain tumor. Right, so um, I joked that I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be much much more well known for my my
Speaker 1: collection of life threatening illness than I ever did anything
Speaker 1: on the ice. Right. But here's the crazy thing was
Speaker 1: when they went in they did the biops. You have
Speaker 1: to dig a hole in your skull and go through
Speaker 1: and take a piece. And they came back and they
Speaker 1: handed my wife Um all the information on the brain tumor,
Speaker 1: and my Tracy goes, oh, listen to this. Cranio fringio
Speaker 1: was are usually detected early in a child's life. I
Speaker 1: was born with a sprain tumor due to a lack
Speaker 1: of growth and development. And so it's like, see you now,
Speaker 1: if you live long enough, all questions will be figured out.
Speaker 1: So they're all trying to go why did it stop?
Speaker 1: And maybe it was when I crashed Gary Walker's bike
Speaker 1: into the telephone pole. Maybe I just, you know, the
Speaker 1: brain tumor just got pummeled or something. I don't know,
Speaker 1: you know, it's just we don't know how things happened.
Speaker 1: But for those years that I I skated, I didn't
Speaker 1: have any of the symptoms anymore. But the second I stopped,
Speaker 1: the brain tumor showed itself. And it was like, wow,
Speaker 1: that's crazy. And so the last time you were here,
Speaker 1: I think you had been maybe read two thousand sixteen.
Speaker 1: It's many a year and a half. Did they rediagnosed
Speaker 1: that they found? Yeah, there's another one. Yeah, two thousand
Speaker 1: four was radiation. It came back in two thousand ten surgery,
Speaker 1: and then it came back in two thousand and sixteen.
Speaker 1: Do we have a pattern here? You know? It's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is gonna be every dingy years. But this time
Speaker 1: I just sort of tapped the brakes and I just said,
Speaker 1: you know what, I just something in me is just
Speaker 1: telling me to get strong. And I didn't know if
Speaker 1: it was physical, mental, emotional, spiritual. I had no idea.
Speaker 1: So I decided, yes, I'm gonna get strong every way
Speaker 1: I possibly can get strong, and and I just cut
Speaker 1: out things in my diet. I added some things that
Speaker 1: were more you know, healthy, and and I just, you know,
Speaker 1: I just got to work. And I went back for
Speaker 1: the first scan and they they said it it hasn't grown,
Speaker 1: and I'm like, wow, that's miraculous, and I go, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna keep doing what I'm doing. So I kept doing
Speaker 1: what I was doing. I went back months later and
Speaker 1: they pulled me in. They go, um, it's shrunk, and
Speaker 1: I go, as has one ever shrunk before without treatment?
Speaker 1: And they go no, And I go, can you explain that?
Speaker 1: And they go, god, I don't know, and I go, okay,
Speaker 1: it's good enough for me. So um it was wild.
Speaker 1: I mean, I just was. And my endochronologists had the
Speaker 1: same brain tumor as me, taken out the same surgery,
Speaker 1: same surgeon, everything. When she was fourteen, only became an
Speaker 1: end of chronologist because she was underserved. And my first
Speaker 1: visit with her, she changed all my meds and I
Speaker 1: felt like a normal person in four days. It was perfect.
Speaker 1: It was unbelievable. And I called her and I go,
Speaker 1: have you ever heard of a crania fingeroma shrinking without treatment?
Speaker 1: She goes, no, okay. Then I went on the Doctorage
Speaker 1: show and I'm like talking to him and I go,
Speaker 1: you don want a crania French Joma's right? He goes,
Speaker 1: of course I do. I go, have you ever heard
Speaker 1: of one that shrank? Without treatment, he goes never So
Speaker 1: then I went back months later and it shrunk again.
Speaker 1: It's insane. No one can explain it. But it's like,
Speaker 1: I'm so grateful that I get a pass, like I
Speaker 1: don't have to deal with it, like I haven't. It's
Speaker 1: it's really invasive and it's your brain, right, so you
Speaker 1: don't want anybody touching it. And uh so I'm just
Speaker 1: you know, just trying to stay in my lane and
Speaker 1: and um, you know again, trying to be light and
Speaker 1: encourage people and and do the best I can to
Speaker 1: advance UM cancer research and and to do good while
Speaker 1: I'm here. You know, i'd much really do that then
Speaker 1: you know anything else. You know, I've got a great wife,
Speaker 1: I've got phenomenal healthy kids, and um, if I if
Speaker 1: this is something I have to take on so they
Speaker 1: don't get it, I'm okay with that too. So um
Speaker 1: you know here we are. So tell me, after you
Speaker 1: come out of your first brain surgery, do you start
Speaker 1: to go, let me see what I feel. Do I
Speaker 1: feel the same? Do I I know? I I knew
Speaker 1: um first because what happens with radiation is they pretty
Speaker 1: much radiation goes through your whole brain and I really
Speaker 1: feel like sometimes I'm in a fog, you know, I
Speaker 1: had chemo, and the chemo brain from that, you know,
Speaker 1: where you can't remember things, and you know, I'll be
Speaker 1: talking about somebody I've known for twenty years and it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: what's his name, name name, and I'll do that right,
Speaker 1: and so I remember, you know, kind of how I
Speaker 1: was before radiation. And I feel like I've lost more
Speaker 1: than a step, you know, but I'm still here and
Speaker 1: that's great. And I'm still doing the work to advance
Speaker 1: the science so that you know, there isn't so much
Speaker 1: collateral damage as the status quo, you know. And so
Speaker 1: that's why you know Cares is Cares. That's my cancer foundation.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna continue to do the work until you know,
Speaker 1: we can find enough science to change the game. And
Speaker 1: and right now there's enough science out there that you know,
Speaker 1: it's the the game is being changed. You know. Cart therapy,
Speaker 1: which is a immunotherapy, is working on lymphoma, and we
Speaker 1: just need to create more for every kind of cancer. Mr. Inspiration,
Speaker 1: That's why I call you never to your face. It's
Speaker 1: someone call you something behind your back that's better than
Speaker 1: what they would call you to your face. I've been
Speaker 1: calling a lot of things to my face. Man. Okay,
Speaker 1: so the book, check out the book finished first, Winning
Speaker 1: changes every thing. The true story is when I started
Speaker 1: your book, I had to stop because I was writing
Speaker 1: my book, and I was like, were too similar? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: computer virus. You can't. Yeah, you put it down, You'll
Speaker 1: pick stuff up. And I do this in stand up.
Speaker 1: You'll pick stuff off and not know you picked it
Speaker 1: up until someone goes, oh, that's similar to go no,
Speaker 1: it's not the sequel. You go, oh it is. So
Speaker 1: I didn't put it down. No, no, no no, it's good.
Speaker 1: But I'm done now, so now I can get back
Speaker 1: to it. But I did have to stop, and I
Speaker 1: would be honest with you, I would say I finish
Speaker 1: it in lof That was a great ted talk. Thanks.
Speaker 1: You know, I just feel like I've only learned because
Speaker 1: I've lost a lot. You know. You tell your stories
Speaker 1: about falling. I feel like that's, you know, my whole life,
Speaker 1: and people see the glamor of it all and go, oh,
Speaker 1: you're good at something, so you're at the top. No way, man,
Speaker 1: do you know how many times I saw all the times,
Speaker 1: all the time, like winning is not glamorous. The only
Speaker 1: part of glamor is that you get to see the
Speaker 1: Instagram picture or the on TV part or that you know,
Speaker 1: and so, but if you're rooted in that, you know,
Speaker 1: if you're rooted in that the idea that this came
Speaker 1: out of a lot of that, it has so much
Speaker 1: more value, you know, because you work through it, you
Speaker 1: didn't give up, you didn't allow your conditions to knock
Speaker 1: you down, and stronger once we get to maintain, you know,
Speaker 1: it's like some of these kids, these viral kids, with
Speaker 1: these people that get on a TV show with all
Speaker 1: of a sudden they're thrust up and they didn't put
Speaker 1: all It's not the fact that they didn't put the
Speaker 1: work into get there, it's that they don't have the
Speaker 1: work ethic embedded into them to continue at that level
Speaker 1: more so than it is well and then you know
Speaker 1: all the other stuff. You know. I tell people all
Speaker 1: the time that we're wired for challenge much more than
Speaker 1: good fortune, you know, because I've seen so many people
Speaker 1: that are, you know, given really a horrific situations and
Speaker 1: they rise up and they're better than it's stronger, more
Speaker 1: in touch and everything they've ever been. And then you
Speaker 1: see people that come across great fortune all at once,
Speaker 1: you know, whether it being an entertainment or winning the
Speaker 1: lottery or whatever, and all of a sudden, all these
Speaker 1: demons come flying out and they're doing things that they
Speaker 1: never could have imagined doing back when they were, you know,
Speaker 1: fighting so hard to you know, kind of just stay alive. So,
Speaker 1: you know, I I'll encourage anybody that's going through it
Speaker 1: right now. I mean, if you're really struggling, you're way
Speaker 1: better off than if you're just at that at you know,
Speaker 1: standing on the podium shaking your fast right now, without
Speaker 1: all that other stuff that allows you to be fortified
Speaker 1: for that moment, Because once you at that moment, man,
Speaker 1: it changes everything. You know. I agree, I couldn't do
Speaker 1: what I do now at the level and with the
Speaker 1: sincerity that I do it now without all the crap
Speaker 1: that happened to be before, and without me being able
Speaker 1: to have the sincerity that I have, I wouldn't be
Speaker 1: able to maintain it. So I'm grateful. What I used
Speaker 1: to look at as a setback, I now see as
Speaker 1: a strength because I go, oh, what was me? You know,
Speaker 1: you know, my mom died early was by my grandma
Speaker 1: was adopted like you know, like you oh, I feel bad,
Speaker 1: but then you go, do you know all the strength
Speaker 1: I've gathered from that, And that's why I'm staying where
Speaker 1: I am. And it's made me a better person. Do
Speaker 1: you know, have you ever heard of Barry Gibbs first
Speaker 1: fame thing? So from from the Barry GiB the last
Speaker 1: remaining brother of the bgs. Uh. You know, he just said,
Speaker 1: first fame. If you can survive first fame, you're gonna
Speaker 1: be great. It's just getting through that first taste of
Speaker 1: all that coming at you. If you can survive that,
Speaker 1: you're probably gonna be okay. And I was blessed that
Speaker 1: when I came home from that Olympics, you know, I
Speaker 1: get the parade and all this other stuff. The government,
Speaker 1: the government, the governor of Colorado called me into his
Speaker 1: office and I thought it was, you know, in my
Speaker 1: jacket and tie, I thought it was a photo op,
Speaker 1: you know. And I walk in and there was a
Speaker 1: guy in the office with him, and he goes, um,
Speaker 1: just wait outside, I'm just gonna talk to Scott. And
Speaker 1: he gave me a lecture on hometown hero syndrome. He said,
Speaker 1: you know, I go, what is that and he goes,
Speaker 1: it's when you're the captain of the quarterback of the
Speaker 1: high school football team and you throw that strike into
Speaker 1: the end zone to win the state championship, and everybody
Speaker 1: carries you off the field and their should yours, and
Speaker 1: you expect the rest of your life to be that way.
Speaker 1: He says, I don't want that to happen to you.
Speaker 1: I just want to make you aware of it. Enjoy
Speaker 1: the fruits of your labor, enjoy everything that comes to you.
Speaker 1: But I want you to know that it will end
Speaker 1: some day, and when it doesn't, want you to be
Speaker 1: prepared for it, and I want to. I just think
Speaker 1: about what a generous gift that was at that time
Speaker 1: of my life, and it's like wow, I think about
Speaker 1: that all the time. It's like, yeah, all just go
Speaker 1: away in a heartbeat, all of it. And that's okay,
Speaker 1: because that's so that's supposed to be my journey. But
Speaker 1: I'm gonna work as hard as I can to do
Speaker 1: everything I can until that moment happens. We shall say
Speaker 1: no more. I shall leave inspired yet again. Scott, It's
Speaker 1: always a pleasure of mind. You're a good man. Thanks
Speaker 1: for doing this, Thanks for having me. Are you kidding me.
Speaker 1: I haven't tried to get you off for we've been
Speaker 1: bouncing and you're out of town. I'm out of town,
Speaker 1: like I've been looking forward this one for months. We've
Speaker 1: been trieding to this for months. Well, you know, let
Speaker 1: me know how I can help you in any way.
Speaker 1: A perform and I'm you know, I'm here to serve alright,
Speaker 1: Scott Hamilton's check out the book finished first and uh wow,
Speaker 1: wow wow, there you go. There you got another episode.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your time. There's a good that's an hour.
Speaker 1: We did an hour. Look look at us. How are
Speaker 1: you gonna edit that? There's no there's no editing? Right up?
Speaker 1: All right, thank you. We'll see you next time on
Speaker 1: the Bodycast