1
00:00:01,000 --> 00:00:04,200
Speaker 1: I'm saying all these words like reliable, consistent, authentic, talent,

2
00:00:04,280 --> 00:00:04,760
Speaker 1: and competent.

3
00:00:04,880 --> 00:00:05,760
Speaker 2: But what does it look like.

4
00:00:05,880 --> 00:00:08,119
Speaker 1: Well, here's what it looks like. At three point thirty

5
00:00:08,400 --> 00:00:11,799
Speaker 1: afternoon at Power Center Academy, when the bell rings, I'm

6
00:00:11,920 --> 00:00:13,160
Speaker 1: busting through the lobby.

7
00:00:13,400 --> 00:00:15,159
Speaker 2: Teachers coming to me. You got to talk to you

8
00:00:15,200 --> 00:00:16,400
Speaker 2: gotta talk to this kid. He did this?

9
00:00:16,440 --> 00:00:18,360
Speaker 1: And who's playing rugby? I know he was playing. You

10
00:00:18,360 --> 00:00:20,239
Speaker 1: gotta talk to him about this. Okay, where is he?

11
00:00:20,239 --> 00:00:22,120
Speaker 1: I'm finding him? Boom, This kid's on the way out

12
00:00:22,120 --> 00:00:23,840
Speaker 1: to the school with his girlfriend. But we got practice.

13
00:00:23,840 --> 00:00:25,160
Speaker 1: Whoa where are you going?

14
00:00:25,520 --> 00:00:25,599
Speaker 3: Like?

15
00:00:25,640 --> 00:00:26,240
Speaker 2: We got practice?

16
00:00:26,239 --> 00:00:27,800
Speaker 1: So I'm going to McDonald's. No, no, no, you're not going

17
00:00:27,800 --> 00:00:28,480
Speaker 1: to McDonald's.

18
00:00:28,600 --> 00:00:29,440
Speaker 2: It is just like.

19
00:00:29,480 --> 00:00:33,040
Speaker 1: A battlefield for like twenty minutes after school, just to

20
00:00:33,080 --> 00:00:34,319
Speaker 1: get kids to show up.

21
00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:40,360
Speaker 3: Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.

22
00:00:40,840 --> 00:00:43,840
Speaker 3: I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,

23
00:00:44,280 --> 00:00:47,239
Speaker 3: I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach an

24
00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:50,840
Speaker 3: inner city Memphis. And the last part it unintentionally led

25
00:00:50,840 --> 00:00:53,559
Speaker 3: to an oscar for the film about our team, it's

26
00:00:53,680 --> 00:00:58,480
Speaker 3: called Undefeated. I believe our country's problems will never be

27
00:00:58,600 --> 00:01:01,400
Speaker 3: solved by a bunch of fans, people in nice suits

28
00:01:01,440 --> 00:01:05,200
Speaker 3: talking big words that nobody understands on CNN and Fox,

29
00:01:05,280 --> 00:01:09,560
Speaker 3: but rather an army of normal folks US, just you

30
00:01:09,640 --> 00:01:14,040
Speaker 3: and me deciding, hey, I can help. That's what Shane Young,

31
00:01:14,200 --> 00:01:17,160
Speaker 3: the voice we just heard is done. Shane is the

32
00:01:17,200 --> 00:01:21,840
Speaker 3: co founder of Memphis Inner City Rugby, which brought a

33
00:01:21,880 --> 00:01:25,480
Speaker 3: sport that was really foreign to the Inner City to

34
00:01:25,680 --> 00:01:29,080
Speaker 3: twenty four hundred students, with one hundred percent of those

35
00:01:29,120 --> 00:01:33,280
Speaker 3: students be accepted into college or the military. Sixty of

36
00:01:33,319 --> 00:01:36,920
Speaker 3: these students have played collegiate rugby, and they helped their

37
00:01:36,920 --> 00:01:40,920
Speaker 3: players get more than a million dollars in scholarships. I

38
00:01:40,920 --> 00:01:43,240
Speaker 3: can't wait for you to meet Shane. Right after these

39
00:01:43,319 --> 00:02:04,360
Speaker 3: brief messages from our generals sponsors, I got to tell

40
00:02:04,400 --> 00:02:10,239
Speaker 3: you I am I'm excited. Today. We've got a guy who,

41
00:02:10,280 --> 00:02:12,800
Speaker 3: if you looked at him, you might think was on

42
00:02:12,840 --> 00:02:17,240
Speaker 3: a surfboard in La somewhere. And I've met him before,

43
00:02:18,520 --> 00:02:23,079
Speaker 3: I know his heart, and I've even spent some time

44
00:02:23,400 --> 00:02:27,320
Speaker 3: just on the side chatting about some amazing things this

45
00:02:27,400 --> 00:02:32,799
Speaker 3: guy's accomplished. And I think you guys are going to

46
00:02:32,880 --> 00:02:38,640
Speaker 3: be absolutely floored by Shane Young. How you doing, buddy.

47
00:02:38,919 --> 00:02:41,200
Speaker 1: I was honored to be here, Bill, and thanks for

48
00:02:41,240 --> 00:02:43,480
Speaker 1: the intro. Just super honest to sit down with you.

49
00:02:44,080 --> 00:02:50,840
Speaker 3: Well, I think that's humbling and thanks dude, which you

50
00:02:50,840 --> 00:02:54,280
Speaker 3: come from? I mean you're here in Memphis, but where

51
00:02:54,320 --> 00:02:55,280
Speaker 3: did you come from? Well?

52
00:02:55,320 --> 00:02:57,919
Speaker 1: I was just thinking because you said the surfboard, which

53
00:02:57,919 --> 00:03:00,280
Speaker 1: is what the kids say about me right now. They say,

54
00:03:00,520 --> 00:03:02,639
Speaker 1: you know, you're like a look like a surfer because

55
00:03:03,520 --> 00:03:06,400
Speaker 1: this this long hair. My family, which I'll get into,

56
00:03:06,520 --> 00:03:08,679
Speaker 1: is from New Jersey. They haven't seen me about six months,

57
00:03:08,720 --> 00:03:10,800
Speaker 1: so they don't know I look like this kid. The

58
00:03:10,880 --> 00:03:13,080
Speaker 1: kids after the summer were surprised to see me like this,

59
00:03:13,400 --> 00:03:14,760
Speaker 1: and so I'm getting that a lot right now.

60
00:03:14,800 --> 00:03:16,440
Speaker 2: Also getting ed sheer in a lot for those.

61
00:03:16,360 --> 00:03:18,520
Speaker 3: Well you're pulling off ginger strong.

62
00:03:18,680 --> 00:03:20,240
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, thank you, thank you.

63
00:03:20,280 --> 00:03:23,560
Speaker 3: No, probably the mustache is even bred. It works. I

64
00:03:23,560 --> 00:03:29,400
Speaker 3: mean you got a yeah. Well and listen a fat

65
00:03:29,400 --> 00:03:32,440
Speaker 3: red edit. Dude appreciates a good looking ginger like you.

66
00:03:32,480 --> 00:03:35,560
Speaker 3: I mean, you keep it, you, Pete, You keep us

67
00:03:35,680 --> 00:03:37,440
Speaker 3: validated out there in public.

68
00:03:37,560 --> 00:03:39,280
Speaker 2: Man, what an honor. I really appreciate it.

69
00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:41,960
Speaker 1: And it's all coming to an end, unfortunately this weekend

70
00:03:42,000 --> 00:03:43,960
Speaker 1: because I have to go officiate a wedding where I

71
00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:46,240
Speaker 1: can't I can't quite look so much.

72
00:03:46,120 --> 00:03:48,920
Speaker 2: Like this, I guess. But yeah, so that'll a lot

73
00:03:48,920 --> 00:03:50,000
Speaker 2: of people will be happy about that.

74
00:03:50,320 --> 00:03:52,440
Speaker 1: But I grew up in New Jersey, like I mentioned,

75
00:03:52,520 --> 00:03:56,400
Speaker 1: and my parents and my brother, that's my family. I

76
00:03:56,400 --> 00:03:58,240
Speaker 1: have one sibling, an older brother two years older than

77
00:03:58,240 --> 00:04:01,160
Speaker 1: me named Ryan. My mom and dad, Stephen Donna. They

78
00:04:01,200 --> 00:04:03,800
Speaker 1: all live down in Southwest Florida now in the Naples

79
00:04:03,800 --> 00:04:06,960
Speaker 1: Fort Myers area, which is where we all moved together

80
00:04:07,200 --> 00:04:09,360
Speaker 1: when I was in high school. Ended up doing the

81
00:04:09,360 --> 00:04:11,680
Speaker 1: rest of high school and college in Southwest Florida at Florida.

82
00:04:11,760 --> 00:04:13,000
Speaker 3: So you did do the beach thing.

83
00:04:13,320 --> 00:04:14,560
Speaker 2: I guess I did. I guess I did.

84
00:04:14,600 --> 00:04:15,960
Speaker 1: Now it was the West Coast, you know, Golf of

85
00:04:16,040 --> 00:04:19,680
Speaker 1: Mexico side, so you know, there's no waves over there.

86
00:04:20,760 --> 00:04:21,640
Speaker 2: It's like a big pond.

87
00:04:21,720 --> 00:04:25,160
Speaker 1: But I went to Florida Golf Coast University and then

88
00:04:25,560 --> 00:04:27,200
Speaker 1: you know, graduated when I was twenty one or twenty

89
00:04:27,200 --> 00:04:29,839
Speaker 1: two years old there and moved straight to Memphis with TFA.

90
00:04:29,960 --> 00:04:30,560
Speaker 2: So that's kind of my.

91
00:04:30,760 --> 00:04:33,280
Speaker 3: So tell me about what your what'd your mom and

92
00:04:33,360 --> 00:04:36,200
Speaker 3: dad do for a living or homemakers or work. What

93
00:04:36,360 --> 00:04:39,080
Speaker 3: tell me about what it was like growing up in

94
00:04:39,160 --> 00:04:40,520
Speaker 3: the young household.

95
00:04:40,800 --> 00:04:44,240
Speaker 1: Wow, my parents are great parents. Man. My mom, you know,

96
00:04:44,320 --> 00:04:46,239
Speaker 1: she's done a lot of different things from from social

97
00:04:46,279 --> 00:04:48,800
Speaker 1: work to I think she worked in a va growing up,

98
00:04:48,839 --> 00:04:50,240
Speaker 1: you know, but then she did get to you know,

99
00:04:50,320 --> 00:04:52,599
Speaker 1: raise my brother and I at home growing up while

100
00:04:52,640 --> 00:04:55,760
Speaker 1: my dad was just being a maniac all over the plays.

101
00:04:56,040 --> 00:04:56,240
Speaker 3: You know.

102
00:04:56,279 --> 00:04:58,080
Speaker 1: And I say that in the most endearing way possible,

103
00:04:58,080 --> 00:05:00,320
Speaker 1: because he was a couple of years before I was born.

104
00:05:00,360 --> 00:05:03,560
Speaker 1: He was the mayor of mine Hill, New Jersey. Mine Hill,

105
00:05:03,640 --> 00:05:06,800
Speaker 1: New Jersey, population not not big, not big, small town

106
00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:08,839
Speaker 1: in northern New Jersey. I don't know the population, but

107
00:05:08,960 --> 00:05:10,760
Speaker 1: you know, but he was the mayor and and it's

108
00:05:10,760 --> 00:05:12,800
Speaker 1: amazing the stories he can show me and even the

109
00:05:12,800 --> 00:05:14,640
Speaker 1: newspaper clippings that we can see. There was like some

110
00:05:14,640 --> 00:05:18,960
Speaker 1: controversy around his may oral candidacy and incumbency even though

111
00:05:19,000 --> 00:05:20,719
Speaker 1: he was, you know, his small town.

112
00:05:20,800 --> 00:05:22,800
Speaker 2: But it was quite quite a time there in the

113
00:05:23,000 --> 00:05:23,599
Speaker 2: late eighties.

114
00:05:24,040 --> 00:05:25,599
Speaker 1: You know, after being a mayor, he got into the

115
00:05:25,600 --> 00:05:28,919
Speaker 1: insurance business and did that for a lot of the nineties.

116
00:05:29,480 --> 00:05:31,279
Speaker 2: You know, and then in the in the mid.

117
00:05:31,080 --> 00:05:33,960
Speaker 1: And early two thousands, he was he was always an entrepreneur,

118
00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:35,000
Speaker 1: the serial entrepreneur.

119
00:05:35,000 --> 00:05:35,760
Speaker 2: He was doing whatever.

120
00:05:35,839 --> 00:05:37,480
Speaker 1: I mean, he was in insurance and then he got

121
00:05:37,480 --> 00:05:39,520
Speaker 1: into some real estate and he was We opened up

122
00:05:39,520 --> 00:05:41,320
Speaker 1: a when we moved to Florida, we opened up a restaurant.

123
00:05:41,400 --> 00:05:43,000
Speaker 1: My mom, my brother, and I. We all worked out it.

124
00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:45,599
Speaker 1: Diner went out of business, so not everything worked right.

125
00:05:46,000 --> 00:05:48,360
Speaker 1: So my dad has been you know, you can call

126
00:05:48,400 --> 00:05:50,800
Speaker 1: him dow Jones because he's been up and down in

127
00:05:50,839 --> 00:05:53,640
Speaker 1: his entrepreneurial journey, his whole You would love to meet him, Bill,

128
00:05:53,640 --> 00:05:56,920
Speaker 1: because your story and uh so, you know that's that's

129
00:05:56,960 --> 00:05:57,440
Speaker 1: been his career.

130
00:05:57,440 --> 00:05:59,560
Speaker 2: And he was also a rugby coach, you know. And

131
00:05:59,600 --> 00:06:00,200
Speaker 2: when we moved to.

132
00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:03,160
Speaker 1: Florida, my brother and I were like teenagers in the

133
00:06:03,160 --> 00:06:04,719
Speaker 1: middle of high school, a lot of friends and we

134
00:06:04,760 --> 00:06:06,920
Speaker 1: were playing rugby and then we got up rooted to

135
00:06:06,960 --> 00:06:09,240
Speaker 1: Florida and we were like pissed at our dad, you know,

136
00:06:09,400 --> 00:06:12,240
Speaker 1: because that he pulled us down there. And we can

137
00:06:12,279 --> 00:06:13,680
Speaker 1: get into all the reasons why if you want, but

138
00:06:13,800 --> 00:06:16,520
Speaker 1: he uh, you know what, we were trying to hold

139
00:06:16,520 --> 00:06:18,800
Speaker 1: everything against him, like you know, these kids in Florida

140
00:06:18,800 --> 00:06:21,240
Speaker 1: are so stupid, dad, and like you know, and like

141
00:06:21,279 --> 00:06:23,560
Speaker 1: we're just like and then there's no rugby down here.

142
00:06:23,560 --> 00:06:25,359
Speaker 1: You took away our favorite sport. I feel terrible, right

143
00:06:25,360 --> 00:06:26,920
Speaker 1: because he was just being a good dad, like doing

144
00:06:26,960 --> 00:06:28,680
Speaker 1: what he had to do, and then we're giving him hell.

145
00:06:29,400 --> 00:06:31,360
Speaker 1: But so what did he do? Starts a high school

146
00:06:31,400 --> 00:06:34,279
Speaker 1: rugby team at our high school. And then and we

147
00:06:34,320 --> 00:06:36,039
Speaker 1: all built and we all built it together. And so

148
00:06:36,760 --> 00:06:39,320
Speaker 1: I got all this experience building an organization, a small

149
00:06:39,320 --> 00:06:41,599
Speaker 1: one at a high school, a rugby team because my

150
00:06:41,680 --> 00:06:45,200
Speaker 1: dad was like, yeah, say no more like rugby and

151
00:06:45,279 --> 00:06:47,520
Speaker 1: yeah Jersey, yeah exactly. And then we moved to Florida

152
00:06:47,520 --> 00:06:49,279
Speaker 1: and there was no youth rugby. It was like, you know,

153
00:06:49,279 --> 00:06:51,600
Speaker 1: it's it's it's a eurocentric it's not it's not popular

154
00:06:51,640 --> 00:06:53,920
Speaker 1: here in America, so don't find it everywhere.

155
00:06:53,920 --> 00:06:56,719
Speaker 3: How did your dad coach rugby? Did he play when

156
00:06:56,760 --> 00:06:57,839
Speaker 3: he was younger?

157
00:06:58,080 --> 00:06:58,599
Speaker 2: He played?

158
00:06:58,640 --> 00:07:00,920
Speaker 1: Yeah in New Jersey that you know, the Morris Lions

159
00:07:00,960 --> 00:07:03,040
Speaker 1: old school. You know, he's playing in the seventies and eighties,

160
00:07:03,440 --> 00:07:04,160
Speaker 1: you know, back when it.

161
00:07:04,120 --> 00:07:07,200
Speaker 3: Was nobody the United States.

162
00:07:07,240 --> 00:07:10,160
Speaker 2: He was a rugby pioneer. Yeah, so yeah, he played.

163
00:07:10,400 --> 00:07:14,440
Speaker 3: He really is an entrepreneur in sports and politics. And

164
00:07:15,480 --> 00:07:17,680
Speaker 3: so tell me about the diner. That's what was that

165
00:07:17,760 --> 00:07:18,320
Speaker 3: in Florida?

166
00:07:18,520 --> 00:07:19,440
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was in Florida.

167
00:07:19,600 --> 00:07:23,760
Speaker 3: I mean I'm envisioning like Alice and mel in the

168
00:07:23,880 --> 00:07:26,840
Speaker 3: back and kissed my grips and all that. Is that

169
00:07:26,880 --> 00:07:27,920
Speaker 3: what we're talking about here.

170
00:07:28,240 --> 00:07:30,160
Speaker 1: It's it's a lot even funnier than that. I mean,

171
00:07:30,200 --> 00:07:32,520
Speaker 1: it's called park Place Diner. And we opened it up.

172
00:07:32,560 --> 00:07:35,480
Speaker 1: Being from New Jersey, you know, we loved a diner

173
00:07:35,560 --> 00:07:36,360
Speaker 1: like that's.

174
00:07:36,200 --> 00:07:39,760
Speaker 3: A that's a Northeast thing exactly so much in Florida.

175
00:07:39,520 --> 00:07:41,720
Speaker 1: Like give me the bagel, give me the breakfast at dinner,

176
00:07:41,840 --> 00:07:43,400
Speaker 1: like you know, the diner. And so we opened a

177
00:07:43,440 --> 00:07:46,080
Speaker 1: park Place Diner with that, you know, in mind. And

178
00:07:47,320 --> 00:07:49,400
Speaker 1: you know it was in this plaza, you know, next

179
00:07:49,440 --> 00:07:51,520
Speaker 1: to a grocery store. And my brother and I and

180
00:07:51,560 --> 00:07:54,000
Speaker 1: all of our rugby teammates, the teenagers that we were

181
00:07:54,200 --> 00:07:56,600
Speaker 1: recruiting and training in rugby and now we were playing.

182
00:07:56,640 --> 00:07:57,440
Speaker 2: We were the servers.

183
00:07:57,480 --> 00:08:00,840
Speaker 1: We were we were the bussers and and we were

184
00:08:00,960 --> 00:08:03,680
Speaker 1: often the kitchen staff. And I'll tell you, you know,

185
00:08:04,080 --> 00:08:07,320
Speaker 1: we my my parents only now have started to learn

186
00:08:07,360 --> 00:08:09,040
Speaker 1: this man. We'd come in for those Sunday you know,

187
00:08:09,120 --> 00:08:10,640
Speaker 1: Sunday after church breakfast crowd.

188
00:08:10,640 --> 00:08:11,920
Speaker 2: That's the diner's busiest day.

189
00:08:12,280 --> 00:08:14,200
Speaker 1: Me and my buddies in high school were not up

190
00:08:14,240 --> 00:08:16,960
Speaker 1: to all all good stuff, and we'd come in like,

191
00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:19,760
Speaker 1: you know, like we had Saturday night, a lot of fun,

192
00:08:20,160 --> 00:08:23,440
Speaker 1: you know, together after our after our rugby games, you know,

193
00:08:23,600 --> 00:08:24,600
Speaker 1: underage and everything.

194
00:08:24,640 --> 00:08:25,600
Speaker 2: So not not proud of that.

195
00:08:25,640 --> 00:08:27,320
Speaker 1: Necessarily, we'd come into the diner the next day and

196
00:08:27,640 --> 00:08:29,080
Speaker 1: we'd deliver, you know, we would do a good job,

197
00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:31,240
Speaker 1: but my goodness, we were we were not feeling good

198
00:08:31,240 --> 00:08:34,280
Speaker 1: those days. But the diner, you know, it was it

199
00:08:34,320 --> 00:08:36,240
Speaker 1: was a it was in a weird plaza. I didn't

200
00:08:36,240 --> 00:08:37,800
Speaker 1: get a lot of business. Turned out a guy we

201
00:08:37,880 --> 00:08:40,040
Speaker 1: hired to manage it started, you know, stealing some cash

202
00:08:40,080 --> 00:08:42,280
Speaker 1: and booze, little embezzlement here and there. The food and

203
00:08:42,559 --> 00:08:44,880
Speaker 1: the food industry is brutal, and so this thing was

204
00:08:44,920 --> 00:08:47,040
Speaker 1: closed after a year and a half, I think it was.

205
00:08:47,160 --> 00:08:49,120
Speaker 1: And it costed my dad, you know, a good amount

206
00:08:49,120 --> 00:08:50,880
Speaker 1: of money to get into that industry. And so that's

207
00:08:51,000 --> 00:08:52,680
Speaker 1: one of those you know, when I talk Aboutdalla Jones,

208
00:08:52,679 --> 00:08:54,000
Speaker 1: he was up and down. That was one of the downs.

209
00:08:54,080 --> 00:08:58,280
Speaker 3: Yeah, that was one of the downs. So fair to

210
00:08:58,320 --> 00:09:02,320
Speaker 3: say that there were good years and bad years. But

211
00:09:02,840 --> 00:09:04,720
Speaker 3: you didn't grow up with silver spoon in your mouth.

212
00:09:04,760 --> 00:09:07,000
Speaker 3: If you're working in a diner, I mean your parents

213
00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:12,120
Speaker 3: are middle upper middle class folks that are raising two kids,

214
00:09:12,160 --> 00:09:13,920
Speaker 3: and that's how you grew up.

215
00:09:14,200 --> 00:09:16,840
Speaker 1: It's funny, and my family's gonna listen to this and

216
00:09:16,880 --> 00:09:19,319
Speaker 1: we're gonna have a fun conversation and reflection of what

217
00:09:19,559 --> 00:09:21,480
Speaker 1: they're gonna hear me say right now, because yeah, we're

218
00:09:21,480 --> 00:09:23,679
Speaker 1: a middle class family for sure. Now, when I grew

219
00:09:23,760 --> 00:09:26,240
Speaker 1: up in New Jersey, I had I had this little

220
00:09:26,280 --> 00:09:28,480
Speaker 1: complex because as a kid, some of the kids I

221
00:09:28,480 --> 00:09:30,440
Speaker 1: was friends with would say I was a rich kid.

222
00:09:30,679 --> 00:09:33,320
Speaker 1: And that is because my dad crushed it in the

223
00:09:33,320 --> 00:09:35,880
Speaker 1: insurance industry after he was the mayor of mine Hill,

224
00:09:36,400 --> 00:09:38,400
Speaker 1: and you know, bought a big house in cash and

225
00:09:38,400 --> 00:09:40,800
Speaker 1: we lived in a nice area. Now that when I

226
00:09:40,840 --> 00:09:42,880
Speaker 1: talk about the Dawa Jones, that was a major up.

227
00:09:43,200 --> 00:09:45,240
Speaker 1: And then there was a lot of years where you know,

228
00:09:45,920 --> 00:09:49,160
Speaker 1: sitting on that leveraging that not everything was like you know,

229
00:09:49,440 --> 00:09:52,360
Speaker 1: cash flow and so and so. One the time we

230
00:09:52,360 --> 00:09:54,400
Speaker 1: got to Florida, you know, we felt very middle class

231
00:09:54,440 --> 00:09:56,920
Speaker 1: and I had pretty much shaken that rich kid complex

232
00:09:56,960 --> 00:09:59,240
Speaker 1: by then. And I think our life is middle class people.

233
00:09:59,440 --> 00:10:00,600
Speaker 1: We're an army of normal folks.

234
00:10:00,600 --> 00:10:05,360
Speaker 3: Have the young residents got it? So you uh, I

235
00:10:05,360 --> 00:10:09,960
Speaker 3: guess Florida grows on you because you go to college there? Yeah, yeaheah.

236
00:10:10,200 --> 00:10:12,600
Speaker 3: And where what was it called.

237
00:10:12,480 --> 00:10:14,560
Speaker 2: Florida Gulf Coast University for Myers, Florida.

238
00:10:14,920 --> 00:10:18,840
Speaker 3: I've seen that. By the way. Isn't there a like

239
00:10:18,960 --> 00:10:24,360
Speaker 3: a resort area south of Fort Myers about forty five minutes?

240
00:10:25,640 --> 00:10:28,520
Speaker 1: Well, that's that's Naples, Florida, right, and so that that's

241
00:10:28,520 --> 00:10:30,959
Speaker 1: one of there's even like an eye Marco Island.

242
00:10:30,800 --> 00:10:32,760
Speaker 3: Marco Island. I got to tell you a quick story

243
00:10:32,760 --> 00:10:33,679
Speaker 3: about where you're where.

244
00:10:33,720 --> 00:10:34,720
Speaker 1: You know a lot about Marco?

245
00:10:34,840 --> 00:10:37,720
Speaker 3: Yeah, well I almost know nothing about it except it's nice.

246
00:10:38,320 --> 00:10:43,439
Speaker 3: But I flew Lisa and I flew to four Myers,

247
00:10:43,720 --> 00:10:45,680
Speaker 3: rent a car, drove to Renteda.

248
00:10:45,960 --> 00:10:46,040
Speaker 1: Uh.

249
00:10:46,240 --> 00:10:49,480
Speaker 3: Fortunately all they had was a suburban, right, So we

250
00:10:49,840 --> 00:10:51,760
Speaker 3: drove a suburban down. And the reason we were there

251
00:10:51,840 --> 00:10:55,000
Speaker 3: is I did a speech. I had a keynote for Firestone,

252
00:10:55,840 --> 00:10:58,560
Speaker 3: and we I had to show up. Part of the

253
00:10:58,559 --> 00:11:01,360
Speaker 3: contract was I showed up a day or so. I

254
00:11:01,520 --> 00:11:06,840
Speaker 3: was there the day early and the week before they

255
00:11:06,840 --> 00:11:09,400
Speaker 3: were talking about this weird sickness people were getting in

256
00:11:09,440 --> 00:11:15,520
Speaker 3: New York City. And by the time we flew to

257
00:11:15,679 --> 00:11:22,080
Speaker 3: Fort Myers, drove to what's that island called Marcrod did

258
00:11:22,120 --> 00:11:25,800
Speaker 3: my speech. After the speech was over, it was a

259
00:11:25,840 --> 00:11:30,040
Speaker 3: dinner speech, went back to our room, and at nine

260
00:11:30,280 --> 00:11:33,959
Speaker 3: thirty is when the world changed.

261
00:11:34,280 --> 00:11:36,839
Speaker 1: You talking about like April twenty something, twenty twenty.

262
00:11:36,600 --> 00:11:41,320
Speaker 3: It's exactly what it was. And Lisa and I looked

263
00:11:41,360 --> 00:11:42,960
Speaker 3: at each other and we were to fly out the

264
00:11:42,960 --> 00:11:46,400
Speaker 3: next day on Delta. And it went from in a

265
00:11:46,400 --> 00:11:49,280
Speaker 3: couple of week period from when we left a few

266
00:11:49,280 --> 00:11:51,439
Speaker 3: people in New York getting this weird illness they couldn't

267
00:11:51,440 --> 00:11:55,400
Speaker 3: figure out to a full blown pandemic and everybody was sick.

268
00:11:55,480 --> 00:11:57,839
Speaker 3: And I had friends in Memphis sick and everything else.

269
00:11:58,520 --> 00:12:01,960
Speaker 3: And Lisa and I said, I don't. We didn't know.

270
00:12:02,520 --> 00:12:05,959
Speaker 3: Nobody knew back then, right, So I didn't. I just

271
00:12:06,000 --> 00:12:07,800
Speaker 3: said I'm not flying on it. I'm not getting onto

272
00:12:07,800 --> 00:12:11,040
Speaker 3: the Delta plane going to Atlanta, running through that big airport,

273
00:12:11,120 --> 00:12:13,920
Speaker 3: all those people running back. We didn't know if if

274
00:12:13,960 --> 00:12:15,720
Speaker 3: you got this, it was a death sentence. I mean,

275
00:12:15,760 --> 00:12:18,760
Speaker 3: nobody knew for sure back then, so I don't know

276
00:12:18,880 --> 00:12:21,720
Speaker 3: how far of a drive it is from that island

277
00:12:21,760 --> 00:12:25,560
Speaker 3: to Memphis. Sixteen hours, Okay, so it was a twenty

278
00:12:25,600 --> 00:12:29,120
Speaker 3: one hour drive for us, because as we're advancing, we're

279
00:12:29,120 --> 00:12:32,760
Speaker 3: getting calls telling us that nobody has li saw or

280
00:12:32,840 --> 00:12:39,160
Speaker 3: toilet paper anymore. So from that island to Memphis, every

281
00:12:39,240 --> 00:12:42,319
Speaker 3: single exit that I had a Walmart or Target for

282
00:12:42,440 --> 00:12:45,840
Speaker 3: a dollar general we stopped. By the time we got

283
00:12:45,840 --> 00:12:49,880
Speaker 3: to Memphis, we had a suburban full of rented suburban

284
00:12:49,880 --> 00:12:51,760
Speaker 3: that I had to turn back into Memphis changed all

285
00:12:51,800 --> 00:12:57,319
Speaker 3: that of ly salt, toilet paper and bottled water loaded

286
00:12:57,720 --> 00:12:58,400
Speaker 3: to the hilt.

287
00:12:58,600 --> 00:13:00,880
Speaker 1: This is pre mask too, yeah, right, like you're not

288
00:13:00,920 --> 00:13:02,720
Speaker 1: you're not bringing back masks. So that wasn't a thing yet,

289
00:13:03,040 --> 00:13:04,160
Speaker 1: That's right, all of it.

290
00:13:04,400 --> 00:13:10,600
Speaker 3: And then as in shortly after, like a few days after,

291
00:13:10,679 --> 00:13:13,560
Speaker 3: is when everybody was talking about these toilet paper holders

292
00:13:13,600 --> 00:13:16,200
Speaker 3: being the scores of the earth and the li saw

293
00:13:16,240 --> 00:13:19,280
Speaker 3: holders being awful, and I felt bad. So then I

294
00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:21,240
Speaker 3: brought most of that stuff to the office and gave

295
00:13:21,240 --> 00:13:25,320
Speaker 3: it away to my employees. Nice that, But that's my

296
00:13:25,520 --> 00:13:27,760
Speaker 3: fort Meyer's experience. I've been there for a day and

297
00:13:27,760 --> 00:13:28,720
Speaker 3: a half and drove back.

298
00:13:28,880 --> 00:13:30,600
Speaker 1: Well, you can have a you can make a sub

299
00:13:30,679 --> 00:13:33,120
Speaker 1: podcast where you just have people on for one minute,

300
00:13:33,240 --> 00:13:35,839
Speaker 1: give me your one minute. Where were you when you

301
00:13:35,920 --> 00:13:36,960
Speaker 1: knew the world changed?

302
00:13:37,040 --> 00:13:38,000
Speaker 3: Right? That's it.

303
00:13:38,000 --> 00:13:39,360
Speaker 2: Wouldn't that be a funny one?

304
00:13:39,559 --> 00:13:40,400
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's true.

305
00:13:40,400 --> 00:13:42,480
Speaker 1: People's little sound bites on I was at a restaurant

306
00:13:42,520 --> 00:13:43,959
Speaker 1: and I got a phone. I saw the NBA game,

307
00:13:43,960 --> 00:13:45,320
Speaker 1: get ship beat out of whatever it.

308
00:13:45,240 --> 00:13:49,640
Speaker 3: Was I was. I was in your old hometown from

309
00:13:49,720 --> 00:13:52,560
Speaker 3: high school. So you go to college? Are you going there?

310
00:13:52,679 --> 00:13:54,800
Speaker 3: What's your degree in? What are you doing? Well?

311
00:13:54,840 --> 00:13:56,320
Speaker 2: So barely got into college.

312
00:13:56,320 --> 00:13:58,040
Speaker 1: I was a terrible student, right when I told you

313
00:13:58,040 --> 00:14:00,440
Speaker 1: about my Saturday night behavior. That kind of to my

314
00:14:00,520 --> 00:14:03,280
Speaker 1: like achievement in college and in high school, like two

315
00:14:03,320 --> 00:14:06,280
Speaker 1: point eight GPA, so bad at math, good, good writing,

316
00:14:06,360 --> 00:14:08,600
Speaker 1: but writing didn't count on the on the se whatever

317
00:14:08,640 --> 00:14:10,280
Speaker 1: it was a ct S a T back then, and

318
00:14:10,920 --> 00:14:13,000
Speaker 1: so I got I got punished for my math, but

319
00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:15,080
Speaker 1: I didn't get rewarded for my writing. It didn't account

320
00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:17,960
Speaker 1: for this admission process. So my brother goes to Florida

321
00:14:17,960 --> 00:14:19,880
Speaker 1: State in Tallahassee. Pretty tough to get into some of

322
00:14:19,920 --> 00:14:22,120
Speaker 1: these bigger Florida schools, especially u F. Florida's like an

323
00:14:22,120 --> 00:14:24,440
Speaker 1: ivy league in terms of like admissions, like standards.

324
00:14:24,480 --> 00:14:26,520
Speaker 3: It's crazy. It is like North Carolina.

325
00:14:26,560 --> 00:14:28,480
Speaker 1: So I'm thinking, I can't get into the UF for sure.

326
00:14:28,480 --> 00:14:30,480
Speaker 1: But I drive to Florida State six hours away, and

327
00:14:30,480 --> 00:14:32,240
Speaker 1: I'm going to missions. I'm saying, hey, I'm Shane. I

328
00:14:32,280 --> 00:14:33,760
Speaker 1: know I don't have this in that, but I can be,

329
00:14:33,800 --> 00:14:35,080
Speaker 1: you know, and it doesn't work.

330
00:14:35,160 --> 00:14:38,000
Speaker 3: And I go to if you had that haircut.

331
00:14:38,920 --> 00:14:42,320
Speaker 1: And so I go to fau usf UCF. I'm talking

332
00:14:42,320 --> 00:14:44,960
Speaker 1: about Boca Raton, Fort Lauderdale, Orlando, Tampa. Just trying to

333
00:14:44,960 --> 00:14:46,480
Speaker 1: get into a school in Florida, because that's the whole

334
00:14:46,480 --> 00:14:48,960
Speaker 1: reason we moved down there, was the Florida Bright Future Scholarship.

335
00:14:49,120 --> 00:14:51,040
Speaker 1: You know, it's like a low hanging fruit opportunity for

336
00:14:51,080 --> 00:14:52,560
Speaker 1: students to get state fund, you know, you know, to

337
00:14:52,600 --> 00:14:55,240
Speaker 1: get go to school affordably. That's why we went. And

338
00:14:55,520 --> 00:14:57,720
Speaker 1: I didn't get in anywhere, and I even got denied

339
00:14:57,720 --> 00:15:00,120
Speaker 1: by Florida Gulf Coast, which had the lowest standards. I

340
00:15:00,160 --> 00:15:02,680
Speaker 1: was like, it was my nightmare because of social pressure

341
00:15:02,680 --> 00:15:03,720
Speaker 1: that I was gonna have to tell my friends. I

342
00:15:03,760 --> 00:15:05,200
Speaker 1: was going to community college, but that was what I

343
00:15:05,240 --> 00:15:07,400
Speaker 1: was facing until I wrote an appeal letter to Florida

344
00:15:07,400 --> 00:15:11,200
Speaker 1: Gulf Coast University and basically pled my case and wow,

345
00:15:11,240 --> 00:15:13,280
Speaker 1: it worked. So I got into the lowest standard state

346
00:15:13,360 --> 00:15:15,320
Speaker 1: university in Florida. I went there and then I majored

347
00:15:15,360 --> 00:15:17,880
Speaker 1: in political science because you don't have to take math

348
00:15:17,920 --> 00:15:18,800
Speaker 1: too much when you do that.

349
00:15:20,240 --> 00:15:22,920
Speaker 3: And did you was rugby going on? Then? No?

350
00:15:22,960 --> 00:15:26,040
Speaker 1: So I played three years for the Naples Hammerheads, a

351
00:15:26,080 --> 00:15:27,680
Speaker 1: men's team. I was like the young guy on the team.

352
00:15:27,680 --> 00:15:29,640
Speaker 1: It's a little bit of an older demographic. By the

353
00:15:29,680 --> 00:15:32,080
Speaker 1: time I was a senior at the college, I had

354
00:15:32,120 --> 00:15:34,000
Speaker 1: recruited enough of my buddies to go play for the

355
00:15:34,040 --> 00:15:35,760
Speaker 1: men's team that we had enough to make our own

356
00:15:35,800 --> 00:15:38,200
Speaker 1: college team. So I started the Florida Gulf Coast University

357
00:15:38,520 --> 00:15:41,680
Speaker 1: men's rugby team my senior year. Played and coached and

358
00:15:41,720 --> 00:15:45,320
Speaker 1: captained and you know, administered the whole operation for one

359
00:15:45,360 --> 00:15:47,680
Speaker 1: year before I moved to Memphis.

360
00:15:48,520 --> 00:15:52,400
Speaker 3: You graduate and decide you're going to be a teacher.

361
00:15:52,600 --> 00:15:53,640
Speaker 3: Is that was that the plan?

362
00:15:54,000 --> 00:15:56,920
Speaker 1: Well, so in my last semester of college that spring,

363
00:15:56,960 --> 00:16:00,320
Speaker 1: I was looking at the military. Honestly, and you know

364
00:16:00,360 --> 00:16:02,920
Speaker 1: that actually made my made my folks like, ah man,

365
00:16:02,960 --> 00:16:05,760
Speaker 1: you like they didn't love that, you know, But I

366
00:16:05,840 --> 00:16:07,520
Speaker 1: was just looking tot. I was looking to serve, and

367
00:16:07,560 --> 00:16:09,480
Speaker 1: I was looking to use my degree. Like I spent

368
00:16:09,520 --> 00:16:11,840
Speaker 1: four years getting a degree. I barely got into college.

369
00:16:11,880 --> 00:16:14,640
Speaker 1: I wanted my next thing to require a degree. I

370
00:16:14,680 --> 00:16:15,800
Speaker 1: didn't really care what it was.

371
00:16:16,520 --> 00:16:19,120
Speaker 2: I had served tables my whole you know, high school.

372
00:16:20,000 --> 00:16:22,960
Speaker 1: Another diner, no, and I and I about even after

373
00:16:22,960 --> 00:16:24,680
Speaker 1: the diner. I worked at restaurants my whole life. And

374
00:16:24,720 --> 00:16:26,600
Speaker 1: I was like ready to do something that required a

375
00:16:26,640 --> 00:16:28,080
Speaker 1: degree I had done. I had done all these other

376
00:16:28,160 --> 00:16:32,840
Speaker 1: jobs for so long, you know, bartending, golf, corps, greenhouse, farming, uh,

377
00:16:33,040 --> 00:16:33,720
Speaker 1: restaurant whatever.

378
00:16:33,680 --> 00:16:36,640
Speaker 3: It's like you got some of your dad because I was.

379
00:16:36,680 --> 00:16:37,880
Speaker 2: Doing doing everything.

380
00:16:38,160 --> 00:16:40,200
Speaker 1: And I wasn't a broke college kid because I worked

381
00:16:40,240 --> 00:16:42,840
Speaker 1: three jobs during college, so you know, I was busy

382
00:16:42,880 --> 00:16:45,320
Speaker 1: all the time. But anyway, I wanted to serve. I

383
00:16:45,320 --> 00:16:46,840
Speaker 1: wanted to use my degree. I was applying to that

384
00:16:46,880 --> 00:16:48,640
Speaker 1: I was doing. I was doing military recruitment. Maybe I

385
00:16:48,640 --> 00:16:50,600
Speaker 1: can coming as an officer. And then I you know,

386
00:16:50,720 --> 00:16:52,400
Speaker 1: then I started looking at peace corps, you know, like

387
00:16:52,440 --> 00:16:55,960
Speaker 1: international like service assignments. And then I got turned on

388
00:16:56,040 --> 00:16:59,200
Speaker 1: to Teach for America and in my mind, I was like, oh, man, like,

389
00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:01,000
Speaker 1: we have so many issues in America.

390
00:17:01,520 --> 00:17:03,440
Speaker 2: Why would I outsource myself.

391
00:17:03,040 --> 00:17:05,919
Speaker 1: To, you know, Namibia with the Peace Corps to go

392
00:17:05,960 --> 00:17:09,080
Speaker 1: build a well where surely that's an awesome service to

393
00:17:09,119 --> 00:17:11,359
Speaker 1: do and those people need that and that service is valid.

394
00:17:11,359 --> 00:17:12,840
Speaker 1: But I was like, what if I just stay in

395
00:17:12,840 --> 00:17:15,320
Speaker 1: the States, you know, and try to invest and serve here.

396
00:17:15,359 --> 00:17:16,760
Speaker 2: I thought Teach for America was a really cool way

397
00:17:16,800 --> 00:17:17,119
Speaker 2: to do that.

398
00:17:17,640 --> 00:17:23,359
Speaker 3: So I don't know how For those who don't know

399
00:17:23,520 --> 00:17:25,600
Speaker 3: all about Teach of America or may have heard of

400
00:17:25,640 --> 00:17:27,359
Speaker 3: it or not heard at all, Teach for America is

401
00:17:27,400 --> 00:17:31,600
Speaker 3: a bunch of young college grads going into typically inner

402
00:17:31,600 --> 00:17:37,560
Speaker 3: city situations or underserved schools, whether they're inner city, urban

403
00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:42,600
Speaker 3: or suburban or rule or whatever, and they're giving two

404
00:17:42,720 --> 00:17:47,879
Speaker 3: or three years of their first professional lives out of

405
00:17:47,920 --> 00:17:54,240
Speaker 3: college to teach ye And there's a community of these

406
00:17:54,320 --> 00:17:57,200
Speaker 3: young people all over the place doing that. Now, some

407
00:17:57,280 --> 00:17:59,080
Speaker 3: do their two or three years and move on to

408
00:17:59,119 --> 00:18:02,080
Speaker 3: what their degree to do, or go to graduate school

409
00:18:02,119 --> 00:18:05,000
Speaker 3: and become accounts whatever. Some end up saying this is

410
00:18:05,040 --> 00:18:08,560
Speaker 3: for me and stay as a teacher. What I don't

411
00:18:08,600 --> 00:18:10,840
Speaker 3: know is do you choose where you go or does

412
00:18:10,880 --> 00:18:14,520
Speaker 3: teach for America assign you a city?

413
00:18:14,960 --> 00:18:17,880
Speaker 1: Oh oh this in terms of the city. It's changed

414
00:18:17,960 --> 00:18:20,159
Speaker 1: since I applied. I don't know exactly how it is now.

415
00:18:20,200 --> 00:18:21,679
Speaker 1: I know it's different. So I'll just give you what

416
00:18:21,720 --> 00:18:23,159
Speaker 1: I do know, which is how it was when I applied,

417
00:18:23,200 --> 00:18:27,040
Speaker 1: which is that when you apply, you rank their cities,

418
00:18:27,280 --> 00:18:29,320
Speaker 1: not all of them. You pick like a top five

419
00:18:30,000 --> 00:18:32,320
Speaker 1: and like, I would like to go to these five

420
00:18:32,359 --> 00:18:34,000
Speaker 1: if possible, and then you pick like two that you

421
00:18:34,359 --> 00:18:35,960
Speaker 1: wouldn't go to if you were accepted.

422
00:18:36,440 --> 00:18:38,160
Speaker 2: And this is this is a funny story. I've told

423
00:18:38,240 --> 00:18:38,920
Speaker 2: you a lot of people.

424
00:18:39,640 --> 00:18:41,479
Speaker 1: So some of the listeners that are here because they

425
00:18:41,520 --> 00:18:43,920
Speaker 1: know me, Will Will Will know that I picked Memphis

426
00:18:43,960 --> 00:18:46,000
Speaker 1: because I was just in my college dorm, you know,

427
00:18:46,040 --> 00:18:48,840
Speaker 1: applying late at night, and I looked at Memphis Tennessee,

428
00:18:49,000 --> 00:18:51,760
Speaker 1: and I thought Tennessee mountains. Oh, I love mountains. I

429
00:18:52,240 --> 00:18:54,639
Speaker 1: don't I don't get I don't get mountains on the

430
00:18:54,640 --> 00:18:55,960
Speaker 1: other end of the state. Bro.

431
00:18:56,320 --> 00:18:58,280
Speaker 2: I know we're the delta. I know.

432
00:18:58,440 --> 00:19:00,800
Speaker 1: I'm an East Coast kid, and like I didn't know better,

433
00:19:00,800 --> 00:19:02,919
Speaker 1: and I had been to like Dollywood growing up on

434
00:19:02,960 --> 00:19:05,600
Speaker 1: like vacasions. I'm like thinking about Knoxville, thinking about I'm

435
00:19:05,600 --> 00:19:08,360
Speaker 1: thinking about mountains, and I wanted mountains, and.

436
00:19:09,240 --> 00:19:13,920
Speaker 3: So I got sat down on the MUDs and that's

437
00:19:13,920 --> 00:19:16,480
Speaker 3: how I got. That's funny because you know, y'all all

438
00:19:16,520 --> 00:19:20,160
Speaker 3: show up with white shirts on and black ties, because

439
00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:23,080
Speaker 3: that almost sounds like you're doing the Mormon thing where

440
00:19:23,160 --> 00:19:26,280
Speaker 3: they where they You get, you get told where you're going,

441
00:19:26,320 --> 00:19:27,080
Speaker 3: and you roll.

442
00:19:27,000 --> 00:19:27,800
Speaker 2: Yeah pretty much.

443
00:19:27,840 --> 00:19:29,439
Speaker 1: And and I actually I need to I need to

444
00:19:29,680 --> 00:19:32,080
Speaker 1: interrupt your flow of questions for a second because I

445
00:19:32,119 --> 00:19:32,960
Speaker 1: was telling somebody I was.

446
00:19:33,040 --> 00:19:37,560
Speaker 3: Out there, there's no flow flows. Always do well my play.

447
00:19:37,560 --> 00:19:39,840
Speaker 1: I'm turning a question back around to you because you

448
00:19:39,880 --> 00:19:42,720
Speaker 1: didn't you We got when we were coming into the

449
00:19:42,720 --> 00:19:44,959
Speaker 1: city as transplants, like I got set up to have

450
00:19:45,000 --> 00:19:46,760
Speaker 1: dinner with like Joe Birch. It was like, you know,

451
00:19:46,800 --> 00:19:49,480
Speaker 1: you know from the y Yeah, I love him, And

452
00:19:49,960 --> 00:19:51,640
Speaker 1: it was just you know, us like twenty two twenty

453
00:19:51,640 --> 00:19:53,200
Speaker 1: three year old just coming into the city. It was

454
00:19:53,240 --> 00:19:56,159
Speaker 1: like teach for America's attempt to engage us in local people.

455
00:19:56,200 --> 00:19:56,600
Speaker 3: I think.

456
00:19:56,640 --> 00:19:59,320
Speaker 1: And somebody told me that you sat down with a

457
00:19:59,880 --> 00:20:01,920
Speaker 1: the with a little cohort of Teach for America people

458
00:20:02,640 --> 00:20:06,399
Speaker 1: circle eleven years ago. Maybe yeah, yeah, Okay, so you

459
00:20:06,440 --> 00:20:08,600
Speaker 1: sat down with Andrea Winztz, who is now the co

460
00:20:08,640 --> 00:20:12,240
Speaker 1: executive director of Memphis Inner City Rugby and was a

461
00:20:12,280 --> 00:20:14,000
Speaker 1: twenty twelve Teacher for America member, with me and my

462
00:20:14,040 --> 00:20:15,200
Speaker 1: co founder Are you kidding?

463
00:20:15,280 --> 00:20:15,600
Speaker 3: Yeah?

464
00:20:15,760 --> 00:20:19,520
Speaker 1: Yeah?

465
00:20:19,560 --> 00:20:22,600
Speaker 3: And now a few messages from our generals sponsors. But

466
00:20:22,960 --> 00:20:28,680
Speaker 3: first giving a shout out to my boy Badger. Badger

467
00:20:28,880 --> 00:20:32,679
Speaker 3: is a member of the Army who emailed me and

468
00:20:32,800 --> 00:20:35,840
Speaker 3: recommended that we set up a telephone number where you

469
00:20:35,880 --> 00:20:40,040
Speaker 3: can leave voicemails with feedback about our movement and podcast.

470
00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:44,840
Speaker 3: We've gotten a ton of emails, and we really appreciate them,

471
00:20:44,840 --> 00:20:47,679
Speaker 3: but some people have a hard time when they're driving

472
00:20:47,720 --> 00:20:51,600
Speaker 3: around or when they're engaged in something and they want

473
00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:55,119
Speaker 3: to leave a quick voicemail about the feedback about our

474
00:20:55,160 --> 00:20:58,520
Speaker 3: movement and our podcast, how an episode touched or inspired you,

475
00:20:58,640 --> 00:21:02,400
Speaker 3: or take action, or even story ideas, pretty much anything

476
00:21:02,440 --> 00:21:05,120
Speaker 3: else as long as this is not weird or creepy.

477
00:21:05,800 --> 00:21:08,400
Speaker 3: So we thought it was an awesome idea. So Badger,

478
00:21:09,280 --> 00:21:11,960
Speaker 3: this is for you and anyone else who wants to

479
00:21:12,000 --> 00:21:17,520
Speaker 3: reach out to us through phone rather than email. The

480
00:21:17,560 --> 00:21:22,040
Speaker 3: telephone number is nine oh one three five two one

481
00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:26,560
Speaker 3: three six six. Call us. Leave a voice, smell about

482
00:21:26,560 --> 00:21:30,240
Speaker 3: your ideas. Leave a voice, smell about anything as it

483
00:21:30,280 --> 00:21:33,119
Speaker 3: pertains to the Army, and we will get it, and

484
00:21:33,160 --> 00:21:49,200
Speaker 3: we will respond. We'll be right back. We now return

485
00:21:49,280 --> 00:21:52,160
Speaker 3: to me asking Shane where he taught in.

486
00:21:52,160 --> 00:21:57,960
Speaker 1: Memphis Goodly Elementary now known as Parkway Village Elementary. I

487
00:21:57,960 --> 00:22:00,400
Speaker 1: was teaching third grade EESL are great?

488
00:22:00,440 --> 00:22:00,600
Speaker 3: What?

489
00:22:00,800 --> 00:22:02,600
Speaker 1: Yesl English has a second language?

490
00:22:02,880 --> 00:22:03,800
Speaker 3: What does that mean?

491
00:22:04,119 --> 00:22:08,000
Speaker 1: It means I was teaching basic English, but to all Mexican,

492
00:22:08,000 --> 00:22:13,720
Speaker 1: Guatemalan and Honduran students, you know, mostly the no.

493
00:22:12,800 --> 00:22:14,600
Speaker 3: No in goodness name does that work?

494
00:22:14,720 --> 00:22:18,040
Speaker 1: I had a pretty strong background in Spanish, just from

495
00:22:18,160 --> 00:22:21,280
Speaker 1: the academic side, but I also I worked in a

496
00:22:21,320 --> 00:22:23,040
Speaker 1: lot of restaurants, speaking a lot of.

497
00:22:23,000 --> 00:22:26,240
Speaker 2: You know, Spanish, with people. I know, dated a Columbian.

498
00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:28,720
Speaker 1: Girl for like five years and with her family a lot,

499
00:22:28,720 --> 00:22:30,639
Speaker 1: So I had enough of a background to make it work.

500
00:22:30,840 --> 00:22:33,480
Speaker 1: And boy, after teaching for three years in that community

501
00:22:33,880 --> 00:22:36,320
Speaker 1: and becoming really engaged in that like you know, Latino

502
00:22:36,320 --> 00:22:38,679
Speaker 1: community and in that pocket of Hickory Hill, you know,

503
00:22:38,720 --> 00:22:39,720
Speaker 1: Southeast Memphis.

504
00:22:39,880 --> 00:22:41,360
Speaker 2: I was almost fluent by the end of it.

505
00:22:41,560 --> 00:22:43,480
Speaker 3: What's the demographics of an area.

506
00:22:43,320 --> 00:22:47,359
Speaker 1: Like that, Well, it's it's interesting pockets, you know of demographics.

507
00:22:47,440 --> 00:22:50,200
Speaker 1: And because as we know, like Memphis, you know, the

508
00:22:50,520 --> 00:22:53,320
Speaker 1: Latin population isn't isn't huge. It doesn't compare of course

509
00:22:53,320 --> 00:22:55,480
Speaker 1: to the black and white population. But there are pockets

510
00:22:55,480 --> 00:22:57,760
Speaker 1: where it's like super concentrated. And that's one of them

511
00:22:57,760 --> 00:22:59,520
Speaker 1: in Hickory Hill. That's why if you go over there,

512
00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:01,600
Speaker 1: I think gets similar on Summer Avenue, people say, oh,

513
00:23:01,600 --> 00:23:03,120
Speaker 1: there's amazing, like Mexican restaurants all.

514
00:23:03,080 --> 00:23:04,040
Speaker 3: Down Summer Rava the same way.

515
00:23:04,119 --> 00:23:04,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, but exactly.

516
00:23:04,920 --> 00:23:05,240
Speaker 3: And that's what.

517
00:23:05,280 --> 00:23:07,840
Speaker 1: Kingsbury is actually where we started the first Memphis Inner

518
00:23:07,840 --> 00:23:10,399
Speaker 1: City Reguy program. Had a heavy Latin population, and that's

519
00:23:10,400 --> 00:23:11,520
Speaker 1: why I see that you know a lot of that

520
00:23:11,560 --> 00:23:14,280
Speaker 1: over there, and similar in Hickory Hill. And so I

521
00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:16,760
Speaker 1: think the school was like forty sixty you know, African,

522
00:23:16,760 --> 00:23:17,920
Speaker 1: American and Latino.

523
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:19,159
Speaker 3: How many white folks.

524
00:23:21,000 --> 00:23:23,760
Speaker 1: I think there were maybe only one or two in

525
00:23:23,760 --> 00:23:28,400
Speaker 1: the whole school Asians. That one or two, maybe maybe

526
00:23:28,480 --> 00:23:30,800
Speaker 1: zero Asians actually, and that school.

527
00:23:30,680 --> 00:23:35,000
Speaker 3: It was it was that's the demographics, and I would

528
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:37,800
Speaker 3: say lower middle income.

529
00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:42,920
Speaker 1: Definitely, definitely, yeah, And that's Teach for America. They won't

530
00:23:42,960 --> 00:23:45,159
Speaker 1: send you to White Station. They can't, like that's against

531
00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:45,800
Speaker 1: their policies.

532
00:23:45,800 --> 00:23:48,760
Speaker 3: Like what white station being a more affluent area.

533
00:23:49,040 --> 00:23:50,080
Speaker 2: You're there to serve, right.

534
00:23:50,200 --> 00:23:53,840
Speaker 3: You're there to serve, meaning you're going into lower income.

535
00:23:53,560 --> 00:23:56,040
Speaker 1: Right, so wit struggling schools, but you know that going

536
00:23:56,080 --> 00:23:57,400
Speaker 1: in absolutely yeah, and.

537
00:23:57,320 --> 00:24:00,840
Speaker 3: You're excited about that because this an opportunity to serve. Yeah,

538
00:24:00,880 --> 00:24:06,200
Speaker 3: So how long do you teach and Teach for America

539
00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:09,919
Speaker 3: before you side? I want to start teaching some of

540
00:24:09,920 --> 00:24:11,360
Speaker 3: these people rugby.

541
00:24:12,359 --> 00:24:18,600
Speaker 1: Like negative one week because because all right, because during institute,

542
00:24:18,720 --> 00:24:21,359
Speaker 1: I had met Devon O'Brien who's the co founder of

543
00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:23,639
Speaker 1: Memphis Inner City Rugby, and I only met him on

544
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:26,080
Speaker 1: a Facebook page where it's a little group where Teach

545
00:24:26,119 --> 00:24:28,400
Speaker 1: for America people were starting to coordinate say, hey, who's

546
00:24:28,440 --> 00:24:30,560
Speaker 1: living in mid who's living here? Can we give you roommates?

547
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:33,000
Speaker 3: As you guys are looking for roommates and friends and

548
00:24:33,119 --> 00:24:34,639
Speaker 3: something or something.

549
00:24:34,320 --> 00:24:36,480
Speaker 1: And trying to orient with like people are getting hired

550
00:24:36,480 --> 00:24:38,399
Speaker 1: at schools and others like didn't get hired yet, I

551
00:24:38,440 --> 00:24:40,639
Speaker 1: haven't even interviewed anywhere, yet you got hired already here

552
00:24:40,640 --> 00:24:42,720
Speaker 1: at a charter school. What's a charter school versus you know,

553
00:24:42,760 --> 00:24:45,440
Speaker 1: Memphis City schools. It was all that chaos on these groups.

554
00:24:45,720 --> 00:24:48,160
Speaker 1: And I saw that his profile picture was a rugby team,

555
00:24:48,400 --> 00:24:50,560
Speaker 1: and I messaged him. I just said, oh, man, I

556
00:24:50,560 --> 00:24:52,800
Speaker 1: see you play rugby, Like we should toss the ball around.

557
00:24:52,840 --> 00:24:54,679
Speaker 1: And me and Devin go back to that thread and

558
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:57,080
Speaker 1: screenshots of it periodically just to go wow, like, look

559
00:24:57,080 --> 00:24:59,000
Speaker 1: at look at what we did after just a little

560
00:24:59,000 --> 00:25:01,719
Speaker 1: bit of a mess of each other. So we decided

561
00:25:01,720 --> 00:25:03,520
Speaker 1: really quickly to start a high school boys of every

562
00:25:03,560 --> 00:25:05,080
Speaker 1: team at the school he got placed at, which was

563
00:25:05,160 --> 00:25:06,159
Speaker 1: Kingsbury High School.

564
00:25:06,400 --> 00:25:11,000
Speaker 3: Okay, So for those are listening, Kingsbury High School as

565
00:25:11,040 --> 00:25:14,679
Speaker 3: a school that's been a Memphis school for years and

566
00:25:14,760 --> 00:25:17,399
Speaker 3: years and years and years, and I would say in

567
00:25:17,440 --> 00:25:23,199
Speaker 3: the sixties it was middle income, blue collar, heavily white

568
00:25:23,359 --> 00:25:29,160
Speaker 3: school that then transitioned during bussing into a very diverse

569
00:25:29,160 --> 00:25:32,720
Speaker 3: school that was probably fifty to fifty black and white,

570
00:25:33,400 --> 00:25:37,760
Speaker 3: no Hispanics, and then over the course of time it

571
00:25:38,440 --> 00:25:44,840
Speaker 3: became a really heavily black school, and then that neighborhood

572
00:25:45,000 --> 00:25:50,320
Speaker 3: started morphing into a really heavy Latino community, and now

573
00:25:50,400 --> 00:25:53,840
Speaker 3: the school is I don't know what percent, but very

574
00:25:53,880 --> 00:25:55,640
Speaker 3: heavy Latino, isn't it very heavy?

575
00:25:55,760 --> 00:25:59,439
Speaker 1: It's probably something similar to what like my good Elementary was,

576
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:00,680
Speaker 1: even though it's other side of town.

577
00:26:00,680 --> 00:26:01,840
Speaker 2: It's it's it's similar makeup.

578
00:26:01,880 --> 00:26:03,960
Speaker 3: So sixty percent Hispanic forty.

579
00:26:04,680 --> 00:26:07,560
Speaker 1: Or the opposite. I'm honestly somewhere there, but sure, yeah.

580
00:26:07,359 --> 00:26:12,280
Speaker 3: But that's it. And that is one of the areas

581
00:26:12,320 --> 00:26:16,840
Speaker 3: of the city that have been particularly hit hard financially,

582
00:26:16,920 --> 00:26:22,280
Speaker 3: and there's poverty and there's uh disenfranchisement, and all you

583
00:26:22,320 --> 00:26:23,800
Speaker 3: have to do is drive up down the streets to

584
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:28,520
Speaker 3: the neighborhoods around around Kingsbury and frankly the larger avenues

585
00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:33,199
Speaker 3: around Kingsbury where you see all the major retailers have

586
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:40,360
Speaker 3: moved out and have been replaced by either nothing or

587
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:46,680
Speaker 3: you know, tire stores or whatever. I mean, Is that right? Yeah?

588
00:26:46,720 --> 00:26:49,120
Speaker 1: Yeah, And especially back back then, you know, eleven years

589
00:26:49,160 --> 00:26:51,600
Speaker 1: ago now, there was not much in that community, and

590
00:26:52,040 --> 00:26:54,320
Speaker 1: I think since then, it's it's amazing they've made a

591
00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:56,719
Speaker 1: great investment in like Guysman Park, which is like a

592
00:26:56,760 --> 00:27:00,560
Speaker 1: big central kind of trademark area of nutbook, and I

593
00:27:00,560 --> 00:27:02,359
Speaker 1: think it's been a big difference. But we used to

594
00:27:02,359 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 1: practice a guysman park before any of that happened. And yeah,

595
00:27:04,359 --> 00:27:06,919
Speaker 1: there was you know, tough, tough neighborhood.

596
00:27:06,440 --> 00:27:11,880
Speaker 3: Tough neighborhood. So you're going to start rugby in the

597
00:27:11,880 --> 00:27:15,439
Speaker 3: inner city of Memphis, a town you know nobody that

598
00:27:15,520 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 3: you just got to and is why.

599
00:27:21,080 --> 00:27:22,879
Speaker 2: Why did we start that?

600
00:27:22,920 --> 00:27:25,560
Speaker 3: Why we know, yeah, but not why did you start it?

601
00:27:25,640 --> 00:27:28,520
Speaker 3: When you and when you were talking about it, I mean,

602
00:27:29,119 --> 00:27:31,720
Speaker 3: what was the purpose in starting a rugby team in

603
00:27:31,800 --> 00:27:36,120
Speaker 3: the inner city? Why would you? I listen, I get okay,

604
00:27:36,160 --> 00:27:38,960
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go coach baseball. I'm going to coach basketball,

605
00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:41,879
Speaker 3: I'm gonna coach football. I'm going to coach something that

606
00:27:41,920 --> 00:27:46,160
Speaker 3: people know, or soccer that people know exists. But when

607
00:27:46,160 --> 00:27:51,320
Speaker 3: you're saying coaching rugby, you're also basically saying, I'm going

608
00:27:51,320 --> 00:27:53,560
Speaker 3: to teach an entire community about sports they probably never

609
00:27:53,760 --> 00:27:56,399
Speaker 3: seen of. And this football that you guys use is

610
00:27:56,520 --> 00:27:58,680
Speaker 3: like overweight.

611
00:27:58,440 --> 00:28:01,960
Speaker 1: Yep, yep. So a couple of things, you know, as

612
00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:04,840
Speaker 1: we're transitioning into Memphis and learning about the city and

613
00:28:04,920 --> 00:28:07,560
Speaker 1: learning about the economics, and you know, the lack of

614
00:28:07,600 --> 00:28:10,760
Speaker 1: resources and different things like that, where you know, we're

615
00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:13,280
Speaker 1: getting fired up to go make a difference. And that's

616
00:28:13,280 --> 00:28:15,080
Speaker 1: part of the design of you know, getting a bunch

617
00:28:15,080 --> 00:28:17,199
Speaker 1: of young people, you know, in to teach for America.

618
00:28:17,240 --> 00:28:19,159
Speaker 1: You're trying to educate them, make them part of the mission,

619
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:21,520
Speaker 1: you know, make a bunch, make an army of mission

620
00:28:21,520 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: aligned people to go make a difference in these schools.

621
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:25,920
Speaker 1: And so I'm learning all these things and I'm getting mad.

622
00:28:26,160 --> 00:28:28,439
Speaker 1: I'm getting mad at poverty, you know. I'm starting to

623
00:28:28,440 --> 00:28:31,040
Speaker 1: get mad that children don't have a choice whether they're

624
00:28:31,080 --> 00:28:34,320
Speaker 1: born into poverty or not. And I'm noticing, I'm noticing

625
00:28:34,320 --> 00:28:36,080
Speaker 1: things about my own life. I'm starting to learn a

626
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: lot as a young man, and I'm picturing myself in

627
00:28:38,520 --> 00:28:42,320
Speaker 1: England at age nineteen playing for the USA under nineteen

628
00:28:42,400 --> 00:28:45,080
Speaker 1: rugby team. You know, I was, I was a pretty

629
00:28:45,080 --> 00:28:47,200
Speaker 1: good player. But when we went over there, we got

630
00:28:47,200 --> 00:28:51,560
Speaker 1: beat one hundred to zero against against did you really.

631
00:28:51,440 --> 00:28:52,400
Speaker 2: Not against England?

632
00:28:52,640 --> 00:28:56,960
Speaker 1: Against Leeds Academy, against Leicester Academy. You know, teams that

633
00:28:57,040 --> 00:28:59,920
Speaker 1: are good in England, but those kids aren't on there now.

634
00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:02,400
Speaker 1: Team they're hoping to get there. We were all on

635
00:29:02,440 --> 00:29:06,880
Speaker 1: our national team hundred zero, and most of those kids

636
00:29:06,880 --> 00:29:09,200
Speaker 1: on the team looked like me, White kids who had

637
00:29:09,320 --> 00:29:15,719
Speaker 1: enough access, proximity, funding, opportunity, relationships, network to get to

638
00:29:15,760 --> 00:29:18,240
Speaker 1: the rugby camp, to get noticed by Sean O'Leary, to

639
00:29:18,240 --> 00:29:21,400
Speaker 1: get noticed by Paul. I'm name dropping the old USA

640
00:29:21,480 --> 00:29:24,200
Speaker 1: rugby coaches, now, you know, helped me get there, and

641
00:29:24,240 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: I'm grateful, But we gotta beat one hundred to zero.

642
00:29:26,960 --> 00:29:30,040
Speaker 1: And so I'm recognizing and reflecting on my own history.

643
00:29:30,720 --> 00:29:33,240
Speaker 1: I'm learning all these things about poverty and Memphis, and

644
00:29:33,240 --> 00:29:36,000
Speaker 1: I'm getting ready to go become an educator. And I

645
00:29:36,080 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 1: have all this experience now coaching. Remember we founded our

646
00:29:38,560 --> 00:29:40,680
Speaker 1: own high school team. I founded my own college team.

647
00:29:40,680 --> 00:29:42,880
Speaker 3: Now, your dad started a team in high school.

648
00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:44,760
Speaker 1: My dad is a serial entrepreneur and a great leader,

649
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:46,760
Speaker 1: and I've grown up with all that. And now I'm

650
00:29:46,760 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 1: coming in and I'm like, I know how to start

651
00:29:48,480 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: a rugby team, And boy, would it be awesome to

652
00:29:52,640 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 1: teach our kids who have such little opportunity a new

653
00:29:56,240 --> 00:30:00,840
Speaker 1: game and go kick out of some of these other

654
00:30:00,920 --> 00:30:03,080
Speaker 1: rugby teams, which the only other rugby teams within a

655
00:30:03,120 --> 00:30:06,440
Speaker 1: thousand miles of Memphis are usually you know the opposite

656
00:30:06,480 --> 00:30:10,000
Speaker 1: demographic from affluents right white private schools. You know, kids

657
00:30:10,000 --> 00:30:13,040
Speaker 1: who are paying to play with two married parents coming

658
00:30:13,080 --> 00:30:14,640
Speaker 1: to the game with food and drinks.

659
00:30:14,360 --> 00:30:15,400
Speaker 2: For the coach. What do you need?

660
00:30:15,440 --> 00:30:16,720
Speaker 1: Can I get anybody a ride home?

661
00:30:16,760 --> 00:30:19,280
Speaker 2: All the resources you know you could ever ask for.

662
00:30:19,600 --> 00:30:20,920
Speaker 1: I'm like, what if we could do it from the

663
00:30:20,920 --> 00:30:23,560
Speaker 1: bottom up with our kids, love on them, surround them

664
00:30:23,560 --> 00:30:26,120
Speaker 1: with resources, great coaching, inspired them. They're going to love

665
00:30:26,120 --> 00:30:27,920
Speaker 1: this game. I already know that once they get good

666
00:30:27,920 --> 00:30:29,960
Speaker 1: at it. Boy, we have some opportunity.

667
00:30:30,280 --> 00:30:31,400
Speaker 2: And I had.

668
00:30:31,400 --> 00:30:33,840
Speaker 1: Little visions and dreams of like what was possible for

669
00:30:33,920 --> 00:30:36,240
Speaker 1: the like you know, macro impact and where we've gotten

670
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:38,400
Speaker 1: to now. But it was more so about just can

671
00:30:38,440 --> 00:30:40,200
Speaker 1: we do it? I only thought I'd be here two years,

672
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:41,959
Speaker 1: you know, because that's how the Teacher for America program

673
00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 1: is designed.

674
00:30:42,840 --> 00:30:48,160
Speaker 3: So assume you have a sign up meeting with parents

675
00:30:48,160 --> 00:30:48,800
Speaker 3: and everything.

676
00:30:49,320 --> 00:30:52,120
Speaker 1: Not even we just asked the principal of Kingsbury, Hey,

677
00:30:52,240 --> 00:30:55,000
Speaker 1: you know, it's just funny because we were so young.

678
00:30:55,040 --> 00:30:57,840
Speaker 1: It was like a skinny old Devin O'Brien, who you know,

679
00:30:57,880 --> 00:31:00,240
Speaker 1: graduated from an elite Northeastern into school and he's down

680
00:31:00,240 --> 00:31:02,160
Speaker 1: here you know, he tells it. He tells a hilarious

681
00:31:02,200 --> 00:31:04,960
Speaker 1: story about how his job on day one at Kingsbury

682
00:31:05,080 --> 00:31:07,960
Speaker 1: was to kind of, you know, tell kids to you know,

683
00:31:08,040 --> 00:31:10,560
Speaker 1: tuck in their shirt and like be the uniform standard

684
00:31:10,560 --> 00:31:12,800
Speaker 1: person on their way into the school. And he's like

685
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:15,320
Speaker 1: one hundred and sixty pounds, straight out of college, like

686
00:31:15,400 --> 00:31:16,800
Speaker 1: white guy from from New York.

687
00:31:17,120 --> 00:31:18,400
Speaker 2: And he just tells a funny story about that.

688
00:31:18,440 --> 00:31:20,760
Speaker 1: So even going to the principal's office, you know, as Devin,

689
00:31:20,800 --> 00:31:24,640
Speaker 1: it's like, hey, I work here, I'm understated. Yeah, I'm

690
00:31:24,640 --> 00:31:26,440
Speaker 1: wondering if we can put a Rugby announcement on the

691
00:31:26,520 --> 00:31:28,720
Speaker 1: on the afternoon announcements, if I can hang these flyers up,

692
00:31:28,720 --> 00:31:29,960
Speaker 1: and if we can host the interest meeting in my

693
00:31:29,960 --> 00:31:32,080
Speaker 1: classroom for kids after school. So it wasn't parents at first.

694
00:31:32,080 --> 00:31:33,920
Speaker 1: It was just kids, you know, seeing who would come

695
00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:37,160
Speaker 1: and you know sign up. Yeah, and it was like,

696
00:31:37,200 --> 00:31:39,400
Speaker 1: you know, twenty five kids I think showed up and

697
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:41,320
Speaker 1: we we put on a Rugby video. We tried to

698
00:31:41,320 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 1: get him excited about practice. I think we already had

699
00:31:43,400 --> 00:31:45,800
Speaker 1: it scheduled. We said, hey, guysman Park next week, we're

700
00:31:45,800 --> 00:31:48,120
Speaker 1: gonna meet in the lobby. We're gonna be walking across

701
00:31:48,160 --> 00:31:50,800
Speaker 1: Macon Road to Guysman Park. Bring your cleats, bring your this.

702
00:31:51,040 --> 00:31:53,440
Speaker 1: And then we learned really fast, falling backwards in all

703
00:31:53,440 --> 00:31:54,480
Speaker 1: these services we provide.

704
00:31:54,520 --> 00:31:55,760
Speaker 2: Now, of course nobody's got.

705
00:31:55,680 --> 00:32:00,120
Speaker 1: Cleats just right right, So we were learning about our

706
00:32:00,120 --> 00:32:02,320
Speaker 1: own privilege and all these things like along the way.

707
00:32:03,960 --> 00:32:19,720
Speaker 3: We'll be right back. And so what does the first

708
00:32:19,840 --> 00:32:25,360
Speaker 3: rugby practice look like in this area? I'm you know,

709
00:32:25,920 --> 00:32:30,200
Speaker 3: I'm envisioning the reverse of that show about the guy

710
00:32:30,280 --> 00:32:33,960
Speaker 3: who went to coach soccer in uh in England. Uh,

711
00:32:34,120 --> 00:32:38,240
Speaker 3: what is that thing called Alex? I'm thinking Ted Lasso

712
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:41,880
Speaker 3: in reverse. I mean, just a complete disaster. Frankly.

713
00:32:42,520 --> 00:32:45,200
Speaker 2: I mean, well, Devin and I were we were good.

714
00:32:45,240 --> 00:32:46,480
Speaker 1: We were good at what we were doing. You know,

715
00:32:46,520 --> 00:32:49,440
Speaker 1: Devin was a great leader and he and he would

716
00:32:49,480 --> 00:32:52,800
Speaker 1: we immediately instituted, like you know, things about study hall

717
00:32:52,880 --> 00:32:55,000
Speaker 1: before practice and we're gonna be checking your grades and

718
00:32:55,040 --> 00:32:57,440
Speaker 1: you gotta be doing this that was already ingrained and

719
00:32:57,520 --> 00:32:59,320
Speaker 1: like what we thought was important. And Devon was so

720
00:32:59,320 --> 00:33:01,040
Speaker 1: good at holding mess and he was the one in

721
00:33:01,080 --> 00:33:03,360
Speaker 1: the school. Remember I had to speed across town.

722
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:06,080
Speaker 3: You're elementary school, right, So I'm.

723
00:33:05,960 --> 00:33:08,920
Speaker 1: Speeding across town every day after school to get there

724
00:33:08,920 --> 00:33:11,240
Speaker 1: to support devn be in the classroom, welcome the guysman

725
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: be at practice, and I'm like, a really experienced rugby coach.

726
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:16,920
Speaker 1: I'm I'm, I'm I'm good like I'm, I don't. It's

727
00:33:16,960 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 1: not really awkward, it's not clunky to get started, like

728
00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:21,120
Speaker 1: I'm working them. And Devin's really good on the other

729
00:33:21,200 --> 00:33:22,800
Speaker 1: end of it, you know, and a good rugby coach,

730
00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:25,000
Speaker 1: and he had experienced playing in college too, So no,

731
00:33:25,120 --> 00:33:26,240
Speaker 1: it wasn't as uh.

732
00:33:26,360 --> 00:33:28,400
Speaker 2: It was just funny the way you know.

733
00:33:28,840 --> 00:33:32,440
Speaker 3: We imagine the dude look at the ball the first time.

734
00:33:32,680 --> 00:33:34,320
Speaker 1: Oh well, yeah, you would love it because you know,

735
00:33:34,320 --> 00:33:37,360
Speaker 1: you're a football you know, coach and a player in rugby.

736
00:33:37,400 --> 00:33:38,000
Speaker 2: You can't block.

737
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:40,800
Speaker 1: In fact, if you have the ball, I need to

738
00:33:40,840 --> 00:33:43,400
Speaker 1: go get behind you so that I'm an option for

739
00:33:43,440 --> 00:33:45,000
Speaker 1: you to pass it to. So I can't block for

740
00:33:45,040 --> 00:33:46,720
Speaker 1: you because A I need to be behind you to

741
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 1: catch the ball and b it's against the rules. And

742
00:33:48,640 --> 00:33:50,480
Speaker 1: that's the first thing the Kingsbury kids wanted to do,

743
00:33:50,640 --> 00:33:52,560
Speaker 1: is like someone's got the rock, I'm running out to

744
00:33:53,040 --> 00:33:53,800
Speaker 1: crack block.

745
00:33:53,640 --> 00:33:53,800
Speaker 3: You know.

746
00:33:54,440 --> 00:33:56,120
Speaker 1: So that kind of stuff you would see and it's

747
00:33:56,160 --> 00:33:59,080
Speaker 1: just funny, you know. And they can't believe it's no pads,

748
00:33:59,120 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 1: you know, give me. And the parents can't believe it's

749
00:34:01,280 --> 00:34:02,920
Speaker 1: no bad because it'such. It's football culture. They have no

750
00:34:02,960 --> 00:34:03,920
Speaker 1: idea what this is. You know.

751
00:34:04,160 --> 00:34:07,360
Speaker 3: Well, I would imagine that at first, parents are like,

752
00:34:08,480 --> 00:34:12,920
Speaker 3: I don't know about this. I interviewed a guy named

753
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:18,759
Speaker 3: Rhee Cooper, yes and from Westside Chicago, who was on

754
00:34:18,800 --> 00:34:21,960
Speaker 3: the first all black road team and Census started all

755
00:34:22,000 --> 00:34:26,520
Speaker 3: these all black road teams and it's an amazing story.

756
00:34:26,680 --> 00:34:29,320
Speaker 3: Listen to podcast. We're not going to redo the r.

757
00:34:29,360 --> 00:34:32,360
Speaker 3: Shae Cooper podcast here, but one of the things that

758
00:34:32,440 --> 00:34:35,560
Speaker 3: he said is that first day of sign ups was

759
00:34:35,560 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 3: a disaster. The second day of sign ups, they got

760
00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,120
Speaker 3: people to come listen because they gave away free pizza.

761
00:34:41,400 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 3: But amongst the students, unbeknownst to the coaches, they were

762
00:34:47,560 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 3: all talking about this is a white sport. Yeah there's

763
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:53,520
Speaker 3: something black people don't do. What are we doing with this?

764
00:34:53,920 --> 00:34:59,799
Speaker 3: And I wondered if you had to bridge some social thoughts.

765
00:35:01,800 --> 00:35:05,600
Speaker 1: And it was funny because the first group we got

766
00:35:05,600 --> 00:35:07,080
Speaker 1: out for that first like week or two.

767
00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 3: By the way, Yeah, I need to be careful with

768
00:35:08,960 --> 00:35:11,120
Speaker 3: what I just said. I don't think there's any such

769
00:35:11,200 --> 00:35:14,359
Speaker 3: thing as a racial sport of any kind. I mean,

770
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:18,000
Speaker 3: I guess ping pong is supposed to be an Asian sport,

771
00:35:18,080 --> 00:35:21,000
Speaker 3: but I love ping pong. And I guess rowing is

772
00:35:21,080 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 3: dominated by white people, so they call it a white sport.

773
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:27,600
Speaker 3: But lo and behold, when black people get involved, they

774
00:35:27,600 --> 00:35:29,680
Speaker 3: can do pretty well at it. And you know, I

775
00:35:29,920 --> 00:35:35,560
Speaker 3: guess what I'm saying is I'm repeating what was said.

776
00:35:35,880 --> 00:35:40,640
Speaker 3: I personally recoil at the notion that anything is a white, black,

777
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:49,040
Speaker 3: Asian Latino sport. But unfortunately that's ingrained in societal preconceived notion.

778
00:35:49,160 --> 00:35:51,880
Speaker 1: Well, and it's it's about access. What why don't you

779
00:35:51,920 --> 00:35:54,920
Speaker 1: see a lot of people of color playing lacrosse? Well,

780
00:35:55,280 --> 00:35:59,279
Speaker 1: it's because lacrosse exists in elite communities where you know,

781
00:35:59,360 --> 00:36:01,239
Speaker 1: in college, where you have to have a lot of money.

782
00:36:01,239 --> 00:36:03,719
Speaker 1: You know how much cost to play youth lacrosse. It's

783
00:36:03,960 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 1: us a lot of money, and so it is it

784
00:36:06,719 --> 00:36:11,279
Speaker 1: is almost an institution that is exclusive to you know,

785
00:36:11,320 --> 00:36:13,200
Speaker 1: those are resources. And so I think that you know,

786
00:36:13,200 --> 00:36:14,319
Speaker 1: there's nothing wrong with naming that.

787
00:36:14,360 --> 00:36:15,799
Speaker 2: I think that's that's totally.

788
00:36:15,520 --> 00:36:17,800
Speaker 1: True and Rugby's like that too to a lesser degree,

789
00:36:17,920 --> 00:36:18,960
Speaker 1: and we're trying to change that.

790
00:36:19,000 --> 00:36:20,239
Speaker 2: You know at Memphis Intersedier.

791
00:36:20,080 --> 00:36:22,400
Speaker 3: Right, I'm just saying, were the kids and parents kind

792
00:36:22,400 --> 00:36:23,719
Speaker 3: of looking at you crooked a little bit?

793
00:36:23,760 --> 00:36:23,960
Speaker 1: Yeah?

794
00:36:24,000 --> 00:36:25,640
Speaker 2: Yeah, So that's what I was gonna say.

795
00:36:25,640 --> 00:36:28,000
Speaker 1: Like the first like twenty kids that came out, they

796
00:36:28,040 --> 00:36:30,400
Speaker 1: were got that interest meeting at the first practice, second practice,

797
00:36:30,480 --> 00:36:32,399
Speaker 1: we didn't have like we were wondering if we'd get

798
00:36:32,440 --> 00:36:35,040
Speaker 1: like some superstar athlete to come out, you know, because

799
00:36:35,160 --> 00:36:37,040
Speaker 1: Kingsbury certainly had some of them on the soccer team,

800
00:36:37,080 --> 00:36:38,959
Speaker 1: the football team, and the basketball team. There was some really

801
00:36:39,120 --> 00:36:41,680
Speaker 1: a big school, thousands of kids, lots of potential, and

802
00:36:41,880 --> 00:36:43,719
Speaker 1: we didn't really get any any big time athletes. So

803
00:36:43,719 --> 00:36:45,680
Speaker 1: we were kind of, you know, working through practice slowly

804
00:36:45,760 --> 00:36:47,680
Speaker 1: building the skills, a lot of drop balls and things

805
00:36:47,719 --> 00:36:50,120
Speaker 1: like that, and I didn't get too much of those comments.

806
00:36:50,200 --> 00:36:54,040
Speaker 1: But a couple of weeks later, you know, Jakari and

807
00:36:54,520 --> 00:36:57,319
Speaker 1: Chris Mignight show up and Anthony show up, and they've

808
00:36:57,360 --> 00:36:59,279
Speaker 1: they've played football, they've been in the weight room, and

809
00:36:59,360 --> 00:37:01,719
Speaker 1: they are the kind of athletes that could probably go

810
00:37:01,800 --> 00:37:04,200
Speaker 1: D one and something if they really applied themselves to

811
00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:06,200
Speaker 1: it and pursued it all the way. And then we

812
00:37:06,200 --> 00:37:07,880
Speaker 1: start cooking, and that's when you start getting some of

813
00:37:07,880 --> 00:37:10,799
Speaker 1: the comments like just about you know, them asking about

814
00:37:10,840 --> 00:37:13,239
Speaker 1: our background growing up and the teams they're gonna play

815
00:37:13,239 --> 00:37:15,160
Speaker 1: against if they're all white. You know, if we're gonna

816
00:37:15,160 --> 00:37:16,279
Speaker 1: be playing against other white teams, what.

817
00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:17,480
Speaker 2: Other schools have this?

818
00:37:17,600 --> 00:37:19,120
Speaker 1: You know, that's the one thing they wanted to know

819
00:37:19,160 --> 00:37:21,520
Speaker 1: what other schools have this, and none of them did

820
00:37:22,080 --> 00:37:24,520
Speaker 1: in our community. And so that that's why shortly after

821
00:37:24,600 --> 00:37:27,560
Speaker 1: our first two months having the team at Kingsbury, I

822
00:37:27,640 --> 00:37:30,759
Speaker 1: broke off from Devin and formed our first other team,

823
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:33,319
Speaker 1: and that was at Power Center Academy, a charter school

824
00:37:33,360 --> 00:37:35,640
Speaker 1: closer to where I was teaching. And then boom, Now

825
00:37:35,640 --> 00:37:37,879
Speaker 1: we had two boys teams that could play against each other.

826
00:37:38,840 --> 00:37:42,400
Speaker 3: Did you ever hear the term church school? Yeah? Yes,

827
00:37:43,160 --> 00:37:46,719
Speaker 3: so when I was at Manassas, I heard that, and

828
00:37:46,760 --> 00:37:51,560
Speaker 3: I think it's valuable to share the church school term

829
00:37:51,600 --> 00:37:55,799
Speaker 3: and vernacular with our with our guests. We were. My

830
00:37:55,920 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 3: second year at Manassas, I was tired of playing what's

831
00:37:58,760 --> 00:38:02,160
Speaker 3: called pay games, where you go to a much much,

832
00:38:02,239 --> 00:38:04,879
Speaker 3: much much bigger, higher resource school, they pay you three

833
00:38:04,920 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 3: thousand dollars near their homecoming queen and unfortunately the Manassas

834
00:38:09,080 --> 00:38:11,400
Speaker 3: I got to that's the only way they could afford

835
00:38:11,480 --> 00:38:14,160
Speaker 3: the little bit of equipment stuff they had. So we said,

836
00:38:14,160 --> 00:38:16,120
Speaker 3: we're going to raise the money and we're going to

837
00:38:16,160 --> 00:38:19,160
Speaker 3: start paying schools our own size and build up. And

838
00:38:19,200 --> 00:38:21,520
Speaker 3: you know, six seven years later, we were paying against

839
00:38:21,560 --> 00:38:23,839
Speaker 3: the teams that used to pay us to come be

840
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:27,279
Speaker 3: beat and whooping on that butt. So yeah, beautiful, But

841
00:38:28,040 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 3: you had to start somewhere, and constantly, I'm gonna say

842
00:38:32,960 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 3: this because this is what it was. The athletic department

843
00:38:37,160 --> 00:38:39,719
Speaker 3: was pimping its football team out to get enough money

844
00:38:39,760 --> 00:38:43,319
Speaker 3: to pay for uniforms and stuff's. And the kids are

845
00:38:43,320 --> 00:38:48,239
Speaker 3: not unaware, right, definitely, And what makes you think you're

846
00:38:48,280 --> 00:38:52,280
Speaker 3: ever going to be the top notch, highly succeeding football

847
00:38:52,320 --> 00:38:55,400
Speaker 3: team when the very school you play for is using

848
00:38:55,440 --> 00:39:00,359
Speaker 3: you to make money. They know it, right. So we

849
00:39:00,520 --> 00:39:04,719
Speaker 3: interrupted that by raising enough money and then leveling our

850
00:39:04,800 --> 00:39:07,080
Speaker 3: schedules so we didn't have those kind of games and

851
00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:09,520
Speaker 3: eventually building back up and play those games again, but

852
00:39:09,560 --> 00:39:12,759
Speaker 3: not for money, but to compete. But we had to

853
00:39:12,800 --> 00:39:16,120
Speaker 3: start somewhere. So that second year and we scheduled games

854
00:39:16,239 --> 00:39:20,520
Speaker 3: with some smaller private schools out and around the county.

855
00:39:20,560 --> 00:39:21,960
Speaker 3: I'm not going to name any of them because don't

856
00:39:21,960 --> 00:39:25,439
Speaker 3: want to ear anybody's feelings. And when the schedule came out,

857
00:39:25,600 --> 00:39:29,080
Speaker 3: some kids came to me and said, Coach Bill, we're

858
00:39:29,080 --> 00:39:32,120
Speaker 3: going to play at these church schools. And I said

859
00:39:32,880 --> 00:39:37,799
Speaker 3: what and they said, you know, the church schools, Saint This,

860
00:39:38,840 --> 00:39:47,160
Speaker 3: Saint that First Assembly, this, this of God school. And

861
00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:51,799
Speaker 3: it just struck me crazy that what I would call

862
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,080
Speaker 3: private or parochial schools, the inner city kids called church schools.

863
00:39:55,640 --> 00:39:57,719
Speaker 3: So I went to the principal that year, who was

864
00:39:57,760 --> 00:40:00,319
Speaker 3: a great guy, Joe Davis. He was there the first

865
00:40:00,320 --> 00:40:03,640
Speaker 3: two years, and I told him about that and he said,

866
00:40:05,280 --> 00:40:08,080
Speaker 3: I guess it's time. And he and I'd had a

867
00:40:08,080 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 3: lot of really good conversations. He said, I guess it's

868
00:40:10,120 --> 00:40:13,440
Speaker 3: time for me to give you a history lesson. And

869
00:40:13,480 --> 00:40:17,000
Speaker 3: I'm like, yes, sir, And he said, you know what

870
00:40:17,080 --> 00:40:19,799
Speaker 3: happened on April fourth, nineteen sixty eight in this town, right?

871
00:40:19,920 --> 00:40:22,120
Speaker 3: I said, yes, sir, Martin Luther King was shot, killed

872
00:40:22,120 --> 00:40:24,840
Speaker 3: and assassinated here. He said right. And he said you

873
00:40:24,880 --> 00:40:27,280
Speaker 3: know what happened after that? Right? And I said riots.

874
00:40:27,320 --> 00:40:32,879
Speaker 3: He said after that, I said bussing. He said right,

875
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:38,680
Speaker 3: and he said which coincided with white flight. And I

876
00:40:38,719 --> 00:40:41,640
Speaker 3: said yes, sir, And he said, you need to go

877
00:40:41,719 --> 00:40:46,200
Speaker 3: look up the charter dates of the vast majority of

878
00:40:46,239 --> 00:40:50,760
Speaker 3: all of these schools. So I did, yeah, yeah, seventy

879
00:40:50,800 --> 00:40:56,719
Speaker 3: one seventy two, all the churches out in the suburbs

880
00:40:57,200 --> 00:41:04,080
Speaker 3: started schools as safe harbor for their white students from

881
00:41:04,080 --> 00:41:08,360
Speaker 3: bussing and black schools. Now, that is an uncomfortable truth,

882
00:41:09,360 --> 00:41:13,680
Speaker 3: but it is truth that. The reality is the vast

883
00:41:13,680 --> 00:41:17,240
Speaker 3: majority of these private schools were started by white churches

884
00:41:17,719 --> 00:41:21,400
Speaker 3: in the suburbs and as a result from the early seventies,

885
00:41:21,400 --> 00:41:25,160
Speaker 3: inside the black community, these schools are known as church schools.

886
00:41:25,520 --> 00:41:25,680
Speaker 1: Ah.

887
00:41:26,440 --> 00:41:28,720
Speaker 2: Wow, that is super interesting.

888
00:41:28,960 --> 00:41:32,560
Speaker 3: It is also super divisive. The one day in the

889
00:41:32,640 --> 00:41:37,879
Speaker 3: United States that we should be the most joined would

890
00:41:37,920 --> 00:41:41,799
Speaker 3: be Sunday, and it is the most segregated day on

891
00:41:41,880 --> 00:41:42,440
Speaker 3: the planet.

892
00:41:42,640 --> 00:41:44,480
Speaker 1: Oh absolutely, especially in Memphis.

893
00:41:45,080 --> 00:41:50,200
Speaker 3: And it existed not only on Sundays but every day.

894
00:41:50,239 --> 00:41:53,800
Speaker 3: As a result of quote, church schools look up their charters.

895
00:41:53,800 --> 00:41:59,600
Speaker 3: That are shocking. So when they said that church school thing,

896
00:41:59,680 --> 00:42:03,239
Speaker 3: I thought, wow. And I don't know if they ever

897
00:42:03,360 --> 00:42:06,040
Speaker 3: voiced it to you. But I gotta believe that when

898
00:42:06,080 --> 00:42:09,320
Speaker 3: you started playing matches with these kids from Power Academy

899
00:42:09,360 --> 00:42:13,040
Speaker 3: in Kingsbury, they knew that they were going to play

900
00:42:13,080 --> 00:42:28,680
Speaker 3: church schools. They knew that we'll be right back. So

901
00:42:30,360 --> 00:42:33,200
Speaker 3: first match you played, who was it against?

902
00:42:33,680 --> 00:42:33,879
Speaker 1: Oh?

903
00:42:33,960 --> 00:42:36,000
Speaker 3: Gosh, do you remember.

904
00:42:36,640 --> 00:42:37,600
Speaker 2: It was against each other?

905
00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:40,600
Speaker 3: I don't know. First match outside of each other?

906
00:42:40,719 --> 00:42:43,840
Speaker 1: Oh, I think against Christian Brothers High School.

907
00:42:43,920 --> 00:42:46,880
Speaker 3: Holy smokes. Right. For people who don't know this, Christian

908
00:42:46,920 --> 00:42:51,080
Speaker 3: Brothers is in the largest classification in the state of Tennessee.

909
00:42:51,520 --> 00:42:54,840
Speaker 3: I think they have twenty five hundred students, two thousand students,

910
00:42:55,200 --> 00:43:00,000
Speaker 3: one hundredcent boys, multi multi, multi, tens of millions of dollars,

911
00:43:00,400 --> 00:43:05,240
Speaker 3: facility and field and wait, it's as nice as it gets.

912
00:43:05,440 --> 00:43:07,600
Speaker 3: And you could it's one of the schools in Memphis.

913
00:43:08,000 --> 00:43:10,680
Speaker 3: You could PLoP down in Texas and the facilities and

914
00:43:10,719 --> 00:43:12,520
Speaker 3: the kids there could compete that.

915
00:43:12,960 --> 00:43:15,000
Speaker 1: It is an incredible Yeah, the campus.

916
00:43:14,719 --> 00:43:19,000
Speaker 3: And you show up to first how'd that go? Uh?

917
00:43:19,040 --> 00:43:20,080
Speaker 2: We got our butts kicked?

918
00:43:20,280 --> 00:43:21,600
Speaker 3: Was it one hundred to nothing.

919
00:43:21,800 --> 00:43:23,799
Speaker 1: Something around there? I think more like sixty five to

920
00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:24,880
Speaker 1: three or something like that.

921
00:43:24,960 --> 00:43:27,879
Speaker 3: Well, they outperformed your national team.

922
00:43:28,000 --> 00:43:33,520
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly, exactly, And this is where so much learning

923
00:43:33,640 --> 00:43:40,440
Speaker 1: started because our kids were feeling out contact, tackling, the rules,

924
00:43:40,480 --> 00:43:43,239
Speaker 1: the referee, and so we're our parents, and you know,

925
00:43:43,280 --> 00:43:44,960
Speaker 1: when our parents could make make it to the game,

926
00:43:45,000 --> 00:43:46,800
Speaker 1: they wanted to see our kids win. And it wasn't

927
00:43:46,840 --> 00:43:49,560
Speaker 1: happening at first. It definitely wasn't happening. We had so

928
00:43:49,680 --> 00:43:52,000
Speaker 1: much ketchup to do. We don't have the weight room,

929
00:43:52,400 --> 00:43:54,720
Speaker 1: we've never played rugby, there's no middle school feeders.

930
00:43:54,920 --> 00:43:58,759
Speaker 3: We don't even understand the intricacies.

931
00:43:58,239 --> 00:44:01,200
Speaker 1: Exactly exactly, but their competitive too, and they want to win.

932
00:44:01,440 --> 00:44:04,320
Speaker 1: And so for Devin and I as coaches, it became

933
00:44:04,520 --> 00:44:11,800
Speaker 1: such a exercise of healing, therapy, patience, sportsmanship, and keeping

934
00:44:11,920 --> 00:44:14,640
Speaker 1: our kids emotionally regulated after they were getting their butts

935
00:44:14,719 --> 00:44:16,839
Speaker 1: kicked at a sport and in a sport they.

936
00:44:16,760 --> 00:44:17,480
Speaker 2: Didn't really love.

937
00:44:17,600 --> 00:44:21,080
Speaker 1: Yet you know, it was super, super challenge in leadership,

938
00:44:21,480 --> 00:44:23,600
Speaker 1: and yet we were able to pull it off. And

939
00:44:23,920 --> 00:44:27,239
Speaker 1: the kids, god bless them, were so resilient, but they

940
00:44:27,360 --> 00:44:30,040
Speaker 1: were figuring it out and they weren't sure sometimes whether

941
00:44:30,440 --> 00:44:33,359
Speaker 1: that tackle was extracurricular, whether you were supposed to wreck

942
00:44:33,440 --> 00:44:35,680
Speaker 1: me like that, and is this a fight. I'm having this,

943
00:44:36,440 --> 00:44:39,200
Speaker 1: I'm having this and they have these trauma responses and

944
00:44:39,200 --> 00:44:41,280
Speaker 1: they're not sure. And then the referees blowing the whistle

945
00:44:41,320 --> 00:44:43,240
Speaker 1: and then boom, we're back ten again and then another penalty.

946
00:44:43,280 --> 00:44:45,239
Speaker 1: I don't even know what happened. There is this rep.

947
00:44:45,239 --> 00:44:46,080
Speaker 1: That Rep's white? Is he?

948
00:44:46,520 --> 00:44:47,160
Speaker 3: Are they all?

949
00:44:47,960 --> 00:44:48,759
Speaker 2: You see where I'm going?

950
00:44:49,560 --> 00:44:51,399
Speaker 1: And our parents too, What does that whistle mean? Why

951
00:44:51,440 --> 00:44:54,000
Speaker 1: are our kids constantly getting penalty these things? And our

952
00:44:54,080 --> 00:44:56,000
Speaker 1: kids were making a lot of mistakes, They're committing a

953
00:44:56,040 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: lot of penalties. They were learning the game. So it

954
00:44:57,600 --> 00:45:01,520
Speaker 1: was a challenge for everyone involved, opposing coaches, referees, us,

955
00:45:01,520 --> 00:45:04,959
Speaker 1: our kids, our parents to grit through some of those

956
00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:07,800
Speaker 1: first you know, games and misunderstandings, and it was a difficult,

957
00:45:07,840 --> 00:45:09,919
Speaker 1: difficult time, but it's fun too.

958
00:45:10,000 --> 00:45:11,080
Speaker 3: But they kept coming back.

959
00:45:11,160 --> 00:45:11,960
Speaker 2: They kept coming back.

960
00:45:12,000 --> 00:45:16,160
Speaker 3: Yeah. I have always said that the kids at Manassas

961
00:45:16,239 --> 00:45:19,600
Speaker 3: kept coming back because they found an opportunity to be

962
00:45:19,640 --> 00:45:23,040
Speaker 3: part of one positive thing and a very very desperate

963
00:45:24,560 --> 00:45:27,040
Speaker 3: life situation and area. Did you found that to be

964
00:45:27,080 --> 00:45:28,520
Speaker 3: the case? Yeah?

965
00:45:28,640 --> 00:45:31,799
Speaker 1: Positive thing And and also I just think it's so

966
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:34,640
Speaker 1: important that that the person, the leader of the coach,

967
00:45:35,080 --> 00:45:38,239
Speaker 1: you know the mentor is like in Memphis, we talked

968
00:45:38,239 --> 00:45:39,440
Speaker 1: about it, Oh we need more mentors.

969
00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:42,680
Speaker 2: We need more? Do we do we? Because because what

970
00:45:42,719 --> 00:45:43,840
Speaker 2: if somebody side.

971
00:45:45,280 --> 00:45:46,880
Speaker 3: That's everywhere, Well, that's everywhere.

972
00:45:47,000 --> 00:45:50,680
Speaker 1: But but I'm saying, like, sure, mentors are cool, but

973
00:45:50,800 --> 00:45:55,600
Speaker 1: like we need people who are competent, dedicated, consistent, predictable,

974
00:45:56,320 --> 00:46:00,400
Speaker 1: human in touch, ready ready to really invest in kids.

975
00:46:00,680 --> 00:46:02,920
Speaker 1: And when you say, hey, it was something positive for them,

976
00:46:02,920 --> 00:46:06,360
Speaker 1: I would argue that they were coming back because of you, coach.

977
00:46:06,920 --> 00:46:10,080
Speaker 1: And I think that our kids were coming back because

978
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:14,040
Speaker 1: they saw how genuine and dedicated, committed, consistent, reliable and

979
00:46:14,080 --> 00:46:16,799
Speaker 1: resourceful and helpful that Devin and I were, you know,

980
00:46:16,840 --> 00:46:17,759
Speaker 1: with those first two teams.

981
00:46:17,800 --> 00:46:19,399
Speaker 2: Now, I don't think they loved the game right away.

982
00:46:19,400 --> 00:46:20,239
Speaker 1: I don't think it was enough.

983
00:46:20,480 --> 00:46:23,880
Speaker 3: I've always said that coaches that players win games, and

984
00:46:23,960 --> 00:46:27,799
Speaker 3: coaches win players. Fair. Yeah, totally fair. Well that's what

985
00:46:27,840 --> 00:46:30,439
Speaker 3: you're citing, yeah, is that you weren't win any games,

986
00:46:30,440 --> 00:46:32,400
Speaker 3: but you were trying to win your kids, right?

987
00:46:32,719 --> 00:46:33,960
Speaker 2: And what does that look like?

988
00:46:34,040 --> 00:46:36,120
Speaker 1: Just any anyone who's listening out there who's like a

989
00:46:36,600 --> 00:46:38,800
Speaker 1: in sports based you development, or like a teacher or

990
00:46:38,840 --> 00:46:41,319
Speaker 1: a coach like You know, you might wondering what I'm

991
00:46:41,360 --> 00:46:44,920
Speaker 1: saying all these words like reliable, consistent, authentic, talent, and competent.

992
00:46:45,040 --> 00:46:45,920
Speaker 2: But what does it look like.

993
00:46:46,000 --> 00:46:47,239
Speaker 1: Well here's what it looks like.

994
00:46:47,320 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 2: At three thirty.

995
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:51,919
Speaker 1: Afternoon at Power Center Academy, when the bell rings, I'm

996
00:46:52,080 --> 00:46:54,759
Speaker 1: busting through the lobby, going at teachers, coming to me.

997
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:56,279
Speaker 2: You got to talk to you got to talk to

998
00:46:56,320 --> 00:46:57,000
Speaker 2: this kid. He did this?

999
00:46:57,040 --> 00:46:58,960
Speaker 1: And who's playing rugby? I know he was playing. You

1000
00:46:58,960 --> 00:47:00,840
Speaker 1: got to talk to him about this. Okay, where is he?

1001
00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:02,719
Speaker 1: I'm finding him? Boom, This kid's on the way out

1002
00:47:02,760 --> 00:47:04,440
Speaker 1: to the school with his girlfriend. But we got practice.

1003
00:47:04,480 --> 00:47:06,200
Speaker 1: Whoa where are you going? Like?

1004
00:47:06,239 --> 00:47:06,840
Speaker 2: We got practice?

1005
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:08,440
Speaker 1: So I'm going to McDonald's. No, no, no, you're not going

1006
00:47:08,400 --> 00:47:09,080
Speaker 1: to McDonald's.

1007
00:47:09,080 --> 00:47:09,600
Speaker 2: You know what I mean.

1008
00:47:09,640 --> 00:47:13,280
Speaker 1: Like it is just like a battlefield for like twenty

1009
00:47:13,320 --> 00:47:15,759
Speaker 1: minutes after school just to get kids to show up

1010
00:47:15,800 --> 00:47:16,680
Speaker 1: because like they're.

1011
00:47:16,560 --> 00:47:19,200
Speaker 3: No, you're rounding up the doggies. I know exactly what.

1012
00:47:19,120 --> 00:47:21,000
Speaker 1: It's like, right, And then I'm taking You know, I

1013
00:47:21,000 --> 00:47:22,799
Speaker 1: got Sam because he's a good leader and he loves

1014
00:47:22,800 --> 00:47:24,360
Speaker 1: he already loves the game, so he's into it.

1015
00:47:24,400 --> 00:47:26,239
Speaker 2: So he's he's interested in this too, Like.

1016
00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:28,960
Speaker 1: Sam, go down to the tenth grade hallway, round them up,

1017
00:47:29,000 --> 00:47:30,360
Speaker 1: do not let them leave the hallway, tell them they

1018
00:47:30,360 --> 00:47:30,879
Speaker 1: got to get changed.

1019
00:47:30,880 --> 00:47:31,600
Speaker 2: They're coming to practice.

1020
00:47:31,640 --> 00:47:33,960
Speaker 1: Boom, I got ninth grade, and you know, and so

1021
00:47:34,000 --> 00:47:35,480
Speaker 1: it just that's what it looks like, you know, for

1022
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:37,640
Speaker 1: those wondering what I mean when I say all these

1023
00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:40,239
Speaker 1: buzzwords about what what keeps kids coming back?

1024
00:47:40,719 --> 00:47:43,839
Speaker 3: All for the payoff of then getting you spend two

1025
00:47:43,880 --> 00:47:46,959
Speaker 3: two and a half hours working for free to teach

1026
00:47:47,040 --> 00:47:49,160
Speaker 3: kids something, right, right, that's it.

1027
00:47:49,239 --> 00:47:51,839
Speaker 1: Right then, and then drive them all home by the way.

1028
00:47:52,040 --> 00:47:56,520
Speaker 3: Yeah, they then somehow get everybody home safely. Yeah, well

1029
00:47:58,600 --> 00:48:01,200
Speaker 3: tell me about your two year two.

1030
00:48:01,400 --> 00:48:02,560
Speaker 2: Yeah.

1031
00:48:02,600 --> 00:48:05,520
Speaker 1: So it was really cool because and this is where

1032
00:48:05,520 --> 00:48:08,320
Speaker 1: you start to see Memphis Inner City Rugby as an organization,

1033
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:09,920
Speaker 1: as an institution come to life.

1034
00:48:10,239 --> 00:48:13,080
Speaker 3: Well, and at this point you didn't really have Memphis

1035
00:48:13,120 --> 00:48:16,439
Speaker 3: City Rugby. You were messing with two groups of kids

1036
00:48:16,440 --> 00:48:17,000
Speaker 3: as teams.

1037
00:48:17,040 --> 00:48:19,600
Speaker 1: Once we got started with the first practice, we did

1038
00:48:19,600 --> 00:48:21,320
Speaker 1: make like a social media page. We did call it

1039
00:48:21,400 --> 00:48:23,839
Speaker 1: Memphis Inner City Rugby, and my ex girlfriend did make

1040
00:48:23,880 --> 00:48:24,640
Speaker 1: us a logo.

1041
00:48:24,480 --> 00:48:29,200
Speaker 2: So we did have that, but we didn't have anything else.

1042
00:48:29,239 --> 00:48:32,480
Speaker 1: And so in year two, we started to engage two

1043
00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:34,880
Speaker 1: of now my best friends and they're still involved in

1044
00:48:34,960 --> 00:48:38,719
Speaker 1: MICR Andres Lopez another Teach for America twenty twelve, guy

1045
00:48:38,920 --> 00:48:40,640
Speaker 1: who we got to know well, who had a little

1046
00:48:40,680 --> 00:48:44,359
Speaker 1: rugby background, graduating from UNC and Chapel Hill, and he

1047
00:48:44,440 --> 00:48:47,279
Speaker 1: was teaching at a school in Westwood called Freedom Prep,

1048
00:48:47,280 --> 00:48:49,279
Speaker 1: another charter school, and we started talking, man, what did

1049
00:48:49,400 --> 00:48:51,520
Speaker 1: you see what we're doing at Kingsbury and PCA, Like

1050
00:48:51,560 --> 00:48:53,680
Speaker 1: what if? Like what if you added a boys team

1051
00:48:53,719 --> 00:48:55,440
Speaker 1: to the mix. And I don't know how we were

1052
00:48:55,440 --> 00:48:57,040
Speaker 1: able to convince Andres to do it. And at the

1053
00:48:57,040 --> 00:49:00,319
Speaker 1: same time we had Brad Trotter, who didn't do Teacher

1054
00:49:00,360 --> 00:49:02,480
Speaker 1: America in Memphis, but he did in Chicago, and then

1055
00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:04,400
Speaker 1: he was down in Memphis because his wife was becoming

1056
00:49:04,440 --> 00:49:08,000
Speaker 1: a doctor at ut HSC, and Brad became an administrator

1057
00:49:08,080 --> 00:49:10,680
Speaker 1: at Soulsville in South City charge school there and so

1058
00:49:10,719 --> 00:49:13,000
Speaker 1: we're like getting Andres and Brad on board, and they

1059
00:49:13,040 --> 00:49:14,640
Speaker 1: do come on board, and they start a boys team

1060
00:49:14,640 --> 00:49:17,000
Speaker 1: at Soulsville, and Andre starts a boys team at for

1061
00:49:17,200 --> 00:49:17,840
Speaker 1: Freedom Prep.

1062
00:49:18,000 --> 00:49:20,719
Speaker 3: So all of a sudden, from nothing becomes not a

1063
00:49:20,800 --> 00:49:21,680
Speaker 3: team but a league.

1064
00:49:21,760 --> 00:49:25,160
Speaker 1: Now we have four boys teams in this demographic under

1065
00:49:25,160 --> 00:49:28,719
Speaker 1: the realm of Memphis inner city rugby, under very talented

1066
00:49:28,880 --> 00:49:30,920
Speaker 1: coaches Brad and Andre's world class.

1067
00:49:33,560 --> 00:49:33,680
Speaker 3: Uh.

1068
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:34,760
Speaker 2: We had we had one. I remember.

1069
00:49:34,800 --> 00:49:38,120
Speaker 1: I remember Jaden Lingerfeldt was a shout out Jaden. He

1070
00:49:38,160 --> 00:49:40,480
Speaker 1: was on my team. He was a white white guy.

1071
00:49:40,600 --> 00:49:43,759
Speaker 1: And I think, and some on Kingsbury you're one. But

1072
00:49:43,800 --> 00:49:46,359
Speaker 1: other than that, yeah, not not not really no, yeah,

1073
00:49:46,400 --> 00:49:48,520
Speaker 1: one hundreds of minority with the exception of a few,

1074
00:49:49,200 --> 00:49:50,880
Speaker 1: but yeah, Brad and Andres.

1075
00:49:51,040 --> 00:49:51,360
Speaker 3: Uh.

1076
00:49:51,400 --> 00:49:53,720
Speaker 1: And that's why, you know, I don't get too crazy

1077
00:49:53,719 --> 00:49:55,960
Speaker 1: about thinking about how we started all this, but I

1078
00:49:56,000 --> 00:49:59,840
Speaker 1: do think Man Andres North Carolina, Brad Chicago, Devin new

1079
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:02,400
Speaker 1: or Me and New Jersey College at all different places

1080
00:50:02,440 --> 00:50:04,319
Speaker 1: teach for America randomly didn't know each other.

1081
00:50:04,719 --> 00:50:06,279
Speaker 2: And then, oh, by the way, we all have.

1082
00:50:06,239 --> 00:50:08,960
Speaker 1: A rugby background, which is already like a you know

1083
00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:11,200
Speaker 1: what I mean, Like, you know, here's.

1084
00:50:10,960 --> 00:50:15,480
Speaker 3: The thing that I really want people to to not miss.

1085
00:50:16,640 --> 00:50:18,680
Speaker 3: You're not from Memphis, and neither are these.

1086
00:50:18,480 --> 00:50:19,319
Speaker 1: Guys, none of them.

1087
00:50:19,360 --> 00:50:24,080
Speaker 3: You don't know the power brokers, you don't know the administrators,

1088
00:50:24,080 --> 00:50:26,160
Speaker 3: you don't know the people to help you with fields.

1089
00:50:26,560 --> 00:50:29,239
Speaker 3: You don't know the people to go ask for for

1090
00:50:29,360 --> 00:50:32,239
Speaker 3: donations for resources. You don't know any of that. Here's

1091
00:50:32,280 --> 00:50:35,640
Speaker 3: what you know. You love rugby, you have a passion

1092
00:50:35,640 --> 00:50:39,040
Speaker 3: for it in service and I have said one hundred

1093
00:50:39,080 --> 00:50:43,800
Speaker 3: times the magic happens when a discipline and a passion

1094
00:50:44,320 --> 00:50:47,799
Speaker 3: exists and it meets an opportunity when you have a

1095
00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:50,759
Speaker 3: discipline or ability to do something, a passion for it,

1096
00:50:51,120 --> 00:50:54,400
Speaker 3: and you see the opportunity to employ that discipline and

1097
00:50:54,480 --> 00:50:59,239
Speaker 3: passion and something that can make a difference. And if

1098
00:50:59,239 --> 00:51:02,480
Speaker 3: we're talking about army of normal folks, have four guys

1099
00:51:02,480 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 3: from y'all didn't even know each other. You don't know

1100
00:51:05,160 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 3: anybody in town. And in the matter of two years,

1101
00:51:08,520 --> 00:51:11,640
Speaker 3: you're not teaching a few kids rugby and spending time

1102
00:51:11,680 --> 00:51:15,200
Speaker 3: with them, you create a league. Yeah, in a city

1103
00:51:15,239 --> 00:51:16,080
Speaker 3: you know nobody.

1104
00:51:16,719 --> 00:51:18,920
Speaker 1: And I want to emphasize that, you know, because this

1105
00:51:18,960 --> 00:51:20,520
Speaker 1: is one thing I'm really proud of. And I will

1106
00:51:20,560 --> 00:51:23,920
Speaker 1: always I will always bang the table emphasizing this because

1107
00:51:25,040 --> 00:51:28,120
Speaker 1: you said it. But I like Brad Andres Devana. Yeah,

1108
00:51:28,120 --> 00:51:30,000
Speaker 1: we didn't know anybody, but none of us come from

1109
00:51:30,040 --> 00:51:32,239
Speaker 1: a super you know, crazy you know.

1110
00:51:32,520 --> 00:51:33,880
Speaker 3: Economic fact background.

1111
00:51:34,160 --> 00:51:36,000
Speaker 1: They were because a lot of people saw us saw

1112
00:51:36,080 --> 00:51:38,360
Speaker 1: us really take off. This was this was pretty successful

1113
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:40,240
Speaker 1: from the start. You know, we had a lot of challenges.

1114
00:51:40,239 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 1: This was extremely difficult, but from the outside facing in

1115
00:51:43,000 --> 00:51:44,359
Speaker 1: if you looked at our marketing, if you look at

1116
00:51:44,360 --> 00:51:47,799
Speaker 1: our social media, we were successful early and then we

1117
00:51:47,840 --> 00:51:49,200
Speaker 1: had these teams and we were scaling, and then in

1118
00:51:49,239 --> 00:51:52,760
Speaker 1: twenty fifteen we started Girls Rugby. And I think some folks,

1119
00:51:52,920 --> 00:51:55,560
Speaker 1: even friends that I have from back home, thought that

1120
00:51:55,680 --> 00:51:58,680
Speaker 1: there was some shortcut, that there was some somebody's uncle

1121
00:51:59,040 --> 00:52:02,480
Speaker 1: cut the check or some big institution bailed us out.

1122
00:52:02,760 --> 00:52:04,400
Speaker 2: There was no shortcuts.

1123
00:52:04,640 --> 00:52:06,880
Speaker 1: We were going broke, paying out of our own teacher

1124
00:52:06,920 --> 00:52:09,319
Speaker 1: salary pockets, and Bill, I'm sure you're familiar with that,

1125
00:52:09,840 --> 00:52:12,120
Speaker 1: you know, when you when you were coaching Manasis to

1126
00:52:12,200 --> 00:52:14,799
Speaker 1: fill gaps, to have needs, our crowdfunded campaign to raise

1127
00:52:14,840 --> 00:52:16,480
Speaker 1: two thousand bucks just to get a bus to go

1128
00:52:16,480 --> 00:52:18,520
Speaker 1: to Murphysboro to play a game because we qualify for

1129
00:52:18,560 --> 00:52:19,640
Speaker 1: state like all this stuff.

1130
00:52:19,680 --> 00:52:22,160
Speaker 2: So no shortcuts, you're exactly right, no access.

1131
00:52:22,360 --> 00:52:26,000
Speaker 1: So eleven years later, with some foundations locally funding us

1132
00:52:26,000 --> 00:52:28,040
Speaker 1: and different levels of support in the city embracing us,

1133
00:52:28,320 --> 00:52:30,960
Speaker 1: we are thankful for that and very proud that there

1134
00:52:31,000 --> 00:52:32,880
Speaker 1: was no foundation to start, you know.

1135
00:52:33,880 --> 00:52:39,920
Speaker 3: The point is it was passion, discipline, and dedication, yeah,

1136
00:52:40,400 --> 00:52:45,080
Speaker 3: not money, organization and help and.

1137
00:52:45,040 --> 00:52:47,719
Speaker 1: Really special young young men and women who embraced us

1138
00:52:47,760 --> 00:52:50,560
Speaker 1: and we're courageous enough to try something new. And they

1139
00:52:50,640 --> 00:52:53,319
Speaker 1: are the trailblazers and pioneers who paved the way for

1140
00:52:53,400 --> 00:52:54,480
Speaker 1: now thousands of others.

1141
00:52:54,800 --> 00:52:59,040
Speaker 3: So I'm gonna I'm going to repeat some quotes and

1142
00:52:59,080 --> 00:53:03,680
Speaker 3: then we're going to go in to the girls. Rugby

1143
00:53:04,000 --> 00:53:05,759
Speaker 3: just kills me, and I want you to tell the

1144
00:53:05,800 --> 00:53:13,120
Speaker 3: story of the first black rugby scholarship recipient, which I

1145
00:53:13,160 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 3: think is freaking phenomenal. That doesn't happen without what you've done.

1146
00:53:17,640 --> 00:53:20,400
Speaker 3: But I'm going to interject a few of these for

1147
00:53:20,480 --> 00:53:24,719
Speaker 3: the manner of the time we talk a player. Memphis

1148
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:28,120
Speaker 3: is top five in poverty, top five in crime. Things

1149
00:53:28,160 --> 00:53:30,640
Speaker 3: that could be prevented if kids had a place to

1150
00:53:30,680 --> 00:53:34,359
Speaker 3: go and people that loved them. He's not talking about

1151
00:53:34,400 --> 00:53:37,960
Speaker 3: a rugby ball, she's talking about love them. Rugby can

1152
00:53:38,000 --> 00:53:41,240
Speaker 3: take kids off the street. I'm a witness because listen,

1153
00:53:41,760 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 3: I'm not the richest guy in the world. I've had

1154
00:53:43,680 --> 00:53:46,800
Speaker 3: to work everything. I have reakyards, carry my lawnmower around.

1155
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:49,960
Speaker 3: Rugby taught me that you've got to be your own man.

1156
00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:52,600
Speaker 3: I didn't have a dad and I was being raised

1157
00:53:52,600 --> 00:53:56,080
Speaker 3: by my grandmother. She was working, and so I was

1158
00:53:56,120 --> 00:53:58,680
Speaker 3: in the bad crowd. I did a lot that I regret.

1159
00:53:58,800 --> 00:54:03,560
Speaker 3: I've vangelized houses, I beat up people, gang affiliation. But

1160
00:54:03,680 --> 00:54:07,640
Speaker 3: rugby changed all that. What does that make you feel

1161
00:54:07,640 --> 00:54:10,160
Speaker 3: when you hear that? That's a life changer, bro?

1162
00:54:11,080 --> 00:54:15,319
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's amazing because you know, I know who that

1163
00:54:15,400 --> 00:54:17,240
Speaker 1: quote's from, you know, and that's.

1164
00:54:17,160 --> 00:54:18,319
Speaker 3: Do you share it? Yeah?

1165
00:54:18,360 --> 00:54:22,000
Speaker 1: So that's that's Calvin Gentry, who was on the first

1166
00:54:22,000 --> 00:54:23,759
Speaker 1: team that I coached. So when he was fourteen years

1167
00:54:23,800 --> 00:54:26,120
Speaker 1: old as a freshman at Power Center Academy, he came

1168
00:54:26,160 --> 00:54:28,200
Speaker 1: out to play and you know, I talked about the

1169
00:54:28,280 --> 00:54:30,440
Speaker 1: Kingsbury group. We didn't have a lot of explosive athletes

1170
00:54:30,480 --> 00:54:31,279
Speaker 1: that came out in the first group.

1171
00:54:31,320 --> 00:54:32,680
Speaker 3: Calvin Gentry was one. Huh.

1172
00:54:32,680 --> 00:54:34,920
Speaker 1: Calvin ended up playing pro rugby later in life, and

1173
00:54:35,280 --> 00:54:37,400
Speaker 1: he got recruited to play at a top five rugby

1174
00:54:37,440 --> 00:54:39,600
Speaker 1: school in the country. He's one of the most explosive

1175
00:54:39,600 --> 00:54:40,600
Speaker 1: athletes I've ever met.

1176
00:54:40,520 --> 00:54:41,040
Speaker 2: In my life.

1177
00:54:41,520 --> 00:54:43,239
Speaker 1: I knew that from the start when he came out,

1178
00:54:43,320 --> 00:54:47,400
Speaker 1: but he was also that he is so special to

1179
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:49,680
Speaker 1: me and the organization because I think without Calvin, there

1180
00:54:50,719 --> 00:54:54,320
Speaker 1: there's the Memphis inner city where he's totally different because

1181
00:54:54,480 --> 00:54:57,680
Speaker 1: he he challenged us in so many ways. Like when

1182
00:54:57,680 --> 00:55:00,920
Speaker 1: you talk about the services we provide now, trans rotation, nutrition,

1183
00:55:01,440 --> 00:55:05,280
Speaker 1: academic support, mental health, counseling, opportunities to you know, get recruited,

1184
00:55:05,320 --> 00:55:08,600
Speaker 1: we're doing our own combine. We're doing everything we possibly

1185
00:55:08,640 --> 00:55:12,000
Speaker 1: can to give our kids access, support, love, but also

1186
00:55:12,440 --> 00:55:15,560
Speaker 1: a trajectory and an opportunity for upward mobility within the

1187
00:55:15,600 --> 00:55:16,120
Speaker 1: sport in ial.

1188
00:55:16,280 --> 00:55:17,560
Speaker 3: I mean it's really not about.

1189
00:55:17,400 --> 00:55:22,799
Speaker 1: Rugby, yeah, but falling backwards into those services was a

1190
00:55:22,840 --> 00:55:26,080
Speaker 1: lot of Calvin, like the special kids, so talented and

1191
00:55:26,560 --> 00:55:28,800
Speaker 1: such a big heart, and you know.

1192
00:55:28,719 --> 00:55:32,400
Speaker 3: He readily admits he was a gang member. Yeah, hendlized houses,

1193
00:55:32,440 --> 00:55:33,359
Speaker 3: He beat people up.

1194
00:55:33,520 --> 00:55:35,120
Speaker 1: And he and he was always getting kicked out of

1195
00:55:35,120 --> 00:55:37,320
Speaker 1: class and teachers had a really hard time with Calvin,

1196
00:55:37,360 --> 00:55:38,880
Speaker 1: and he was just such a ball of energy. So

1197
00:55:38,960 --> 00:55:41,200
Speaker 1: rugby really helped him as an outlet, but he also

1198
00:55:41,239 --> 00:55:43,279
Speaker 1: always needed a ride home. You know, there were so

1199
00:55:43,280 --> 00:55:46,239
Speaker 1: many resources that he lacked, and so what we were

1200
00:55:46,280 --> 00:55:51,000
Speaker 1: trying to provide was a really great combination of things

1201
00:55:51,120 --> 00:55:53,680
Speaker 1: to help a person like Calvin, who who was difficult

1202
00:55:53,680 --> 00:55:57,080
Speaker 1: to help because of the resources he lacked and the

1203
00:55:57,160 --> 00:55:59,560
Speaker 1: challenges he faced. And so it was like, it makes

1204
00:55:59,560 --> 00:56:03,920
Speaker 1: me feel proud because and thankful and thankful because Calvin

1205
00:56:04,000 --> 00:56:07,640
Speaker 1: did not receive the world class alumni support program that

1206
00:56:07,680 --> 00:56:11,759
Speaker 1: we now have codified, vetted in a budget that you know,

1207
00:56:11,840 --> 00:56:14,919
Speaker 1: is prepared and it's designed and it is amazing, and

1208
00:56:14,920 --> 00:56:16,680
Speaker 1: and we don't we didn't have that for Calvin.

1209
00:56:16,719 --> 00:56:18,120
Speaker 2: We were just doing everything we could.

1210
00:56:18,800 --> 00:56:21,600
Speaker 1: And now because of what Calvin went through and the

1211
00:56:21,680 --> 00:56:24,800
Speaker 1: sort of cross he bared, now kids get that because Calvin,

1212
00:56:24,920 --> 00:56:26,560
Speaker 1: you know, you're reading a quote from a film that

1213
00:56:26,680 --> 00:56:30,520
Speaker 1: was made very much about him, and that film helped

1214
00:56:30,560 --> 00:56:33,840
Speaker 1: Memphis inter City raise money to then start girls teams

1215
00:56:33,880 --> 00:56:36,759
Speaker 1: and to then offer a scholarship and to then you know,

1216
00:56:36,880 --> 00:56:40,120
Speaker 1: conceive a world class alumni support program, most of which

1217
00:56:40,160 --> 00:56:43,480
Speaker 1: he missed out on because he was already off to college.

1218
00:56:43,480 --> 00:56:45,920
Speaker 1: He was already off to his career. He's now a teacher,

1219
00:56:46,560 --> 00:56:49,120
Speaker 1: and he's so he's so special to me. So I

1220
00:56:49,120 --> 00:56:50,600
Speaker 1: could go on all day about Calvin, but.

1221
00:56:50,760 --> 00:56:52,520
Speaker 3: Well, now you busted the bubbles, so you might as

1222
00:56:52,560 --> 00:56:53,760
Speaker 3: well tell us about the film.

1223
00:56:54,560 --> 00:56:56,560
Speaker 1: Well, so, I think I think the one you read

1224
00:56:56,680 --> 00:57:00,440
Speaker 1: is from a YouTube. It's a film called The Rugby

1225
00:57:00,440 --> 00:57:02,440
Speaker 1: Boys of Memphis, And if you go on Memphis in

1226
00:57:02,480 --> 00:57:04,839
Speaker 1: Her City Rugbyes YouTube channel, it's like seventeen minutes long

1227
00:57:04,880 --> 00:57:07,120
Speaker 1: and it tells a story of like our boys team

1228
00:57:07,200 --> 00:57:11,040
Speaker 1: journey to the twenty fourteen state championships and Calvin was

1229
00:57:11,040 --> 00:57:13,520
Speaker 1: like a leader of that team, but then in twenty

1230
00:57:13,600 --> 00:57:17,520
Speaker 1: sixteen some bigger. Honestly, that documentary is something like I

1231
00:57:17,600 --> 00:57:18,960
Speaker 1: directed because I wanted to.

1232
00:57:19,080 --> 00:57:20,840
Speaker 2: I just wanted. I thought this team would make.

1233
00:57:20,800 --> 00:57:22,720
Speaker 3: It a video yearbook as much as anything.

1234
00:57:22,800 --> 00:57:25,360
Speaker 1: Well, but it really started. I remember going home for Thanksgiving,

1235
00:57:25,600 --> 00:57:28,160
Speaker 1: being in Florida. My team had already qualified for state

1236
00:57:28,200 --> 00:57:29,760
Speaker 1: and they were playing so good, and I thought it

1237
00:57:29,800 --> 00:57:31,120
Speaker 1: was such a special thing. I was like, I got

1238
00:57:31,120 --> 00:57:32,560
Speaker 1: to get someone just to film the game so that

1239
00:57:32,560 --> 00:57:35,360
Speaker 1: these kids can get recruited for college. And me trying

1240
00:57:35,360 --> 00:57:37,120
Speaker 1: to find someone to recruit the games with no money

1241
00:57:37,120 --> 00:57:39,800
Speaker 1: and no resources, turned into this guy saying, why don't

1242
00:57:39,840 --> 00:57:42,000
Speaker 1: I just film me all for the whole weekend? And

1243
00:57:42,040 --> 00:57:44,200
Speaker 1: that became that film called The Rugby Boys of Memphis,

1244
00:57:44,560 --> 00:57:47,360
Speaker 1: and then later on because of the notoriety of that story,

1245
00:57:47,360 --> 00:57:50,360
Speaker 1: our marketing, our social media, a guy named David Dark

1246
00:57:50,440 --> 00:57:52,480
Speaker 1: called me, who was like an Emmy or Grammy, which

1247
00:57:52,520 --> 00:57:53,560
Speaker 1: one's not music.

1248
00:57:56,080 --> 00:57:59,720
Speaker 3: Emmy, Grammy's Musicmmy, TV and movies.

1249
00:58:00,080 --> 00:58:02,560
Speaker 1: Sorry David if you're listening, But David Dark Emmy Award

1250
00:58:02,560 --> 00:58:05,560
Speaker 1: winning filmmaker, humanitarian. I mean, this guy is a legend

1251
00:58:05,560 --> 00:58:07,280
Speaker 1: and you look him up. He's done some incredible things.

1252
00:58:07,320 --> 00:58:09,240
Speaker 1: But he called me, he said, I saw this. You know,

1253
00:58:09,240 --> 00:58:11,439
Speaker 1: I grew up in England, I you know, played rugby

1254
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:12,680
Speaker 1: and I saw this is a really special story. Can

1255
00:58:12,720 --> 00:58:16,080
Speaker 1: we talk about making a film that became a film

1256
00:58:16,120 --> 00:58:18,080
Speaker 1: that is available on Amazon Prime. I don't know if

1257
00:58:18,120 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 1: it's live on there anymore, but it's twenty sixteen and

1258
00:58:20,080 --> 00:58:23,840
Speaker 1: eight centers around Calvin and so and I went that too. Okay,

1259
00:58:23,880 --> 00:58:26,160
Speaker 1: So I got this wrong. That's called The Rugby Boys

1260
00:58:26,200 --> 00:58:28,520
Speaker 1: of Memphis. The one on YouTube is called The Power

1261
00:58:28,560 --> 00:58:29,160
Speaker 1: of Rugby.

1262
00:58:29,280 --> 00:58:32,040
Speaker 3: So sorry. So the Rugby Voice of Memphis I think

1263
00:58:32,160 --> 00:58:34,160
Speaker 3: was even like sponsored by Gatorade or something.

1264
00:58:34,240 --> 00:58:36,760
Speaker 1: Yeah, Gatorade like kind of funded it and yeah got

1265
00:58:36,760 --> 00:58:37,240
Speaker 1: behind it.

1266
00:58:37,360 --> 00:58:42,040
Speaker 3: Okay, So let's recap. Yeah, first, year, a bunch of

1267
00:58:42,120 --> 00:58:45,240
Speaker 3: kids at Kingsbury who don't know what's going on, second

1268
00:58:45,320 --> 00:58:50,920
Speaker 3: year Power Academy, and five years later you've got Emmy

1269
00:58:50,960 --> 00:58:56,680
Speaker 3: Award winning movie makers telling your story, all because four

1270
00:58:56,720 --> 00:59:00,600
Speaker 3: guys from different points of the world who were with

1271
00:59:00,760 --> 00:59:05,480
Speaker 3: Teach for America with teacher salaries decide to invest.

1272
00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:10,040
Speaker 1: Yeah, lean in, and uh not sleep a lot here.

1273
00:59:13,800 --> 00:59:17,120
Speaker 3: And that concludes Part one of my conversations with Shane Young,

1274
00:59:17,200 --> 00:59:21,120
Speaker 3: and Part two is now available and I promise you

1275
00:59:21,120 --> 00:59:23,760
Speaker 3: you won't want to miss it. But if for some

1276
00:59:23,840 --> 00:59:26,800
Speaker 3: reason you do, make sure you join the Army of

1277
00:59:26,880 --> 00:59:30,520
Speaker 3: Normal Folks at Normalfolks dot us and sign up to

1278
00:59:30,520 --> 00:59:33,280
Speaker 3: become a member of our movement. By signing up, you'll

1279
00:59:33,280 --> 00:59:37,400
Speaker 3: also receive a weekly email with short episode summaries in

1280
00:59:37,440 --> 00:59:40,160
Speaker 3: case you happen to miss an episode, or you may

1281
00:59:40,200 --> 00:59:44,240
Speaker 3: prefer reading about our incredible guests. Together, guys, we can

1282
00:59:44,320 --> 00:59:47,720
Speaker 3: change the country, and it starts with you. I'll see

1283
00:59:47,760 --> 00:59:48,479
Speaker 3: you in Part two.