1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:01,101
All right, all right.

2
00:00:01,101 --> 00:00:02,402
Feeney Talks with friends.

3
00:00:02,402 --> 00:00:04,637
Episode 124.

4
00:00:04,637 --> 00:00:07,273
I'm really excited about our guest today.
What's up? Steve?

5
00:00:07,273 --> 00:00:09,909
How are you? Great to be here.
This is amazing.

6
00:00:09,909 --> 00:00:11,845
Feeney talks with friends.

7
00:00:11,845 --> 00:00:12,846
I use this podcast.

8
00:00:12,846 --> 00:00:14,581
Feeney talks with friends,
and I talk to wonderful

9
00:00:14,581 --> 00:00:16,883
people in the community
that are doing great things.

10
00:00:16,883 --> 00:00:19,619
And, Steve, I mean, how fitting is it?

11
00:00:19,619 --> 00:00:23,223
It's it's episode 124, and you represent.

12
00:00:23,890 --> 00:00:26,292
Two for one. You got it.

13
00:00:26,292 --> 00:00:27,060
Two for one.

14
00:00:27,060 --> 00:00:29,162
Life's too short for one, sport.

15
00:00:29,162 --> 00:00:30,797
That's an amazing slogan.

16
00:00:30,797 --> 00:00:33,233
I mean, where can we start?
We're so excited.

17
00:00:33,233 --> 00:00:35,935
How did how did that model get started?

18
00:00:35,935 --> 00:00:37,604
Where's two for one?

19
00:00:37,604 --> 00:00:39,639
Well,
you know, I've told this story many times,

20
00:00:39,639 --> 00:00:40,673
and actually

21
00:00:40,673 --> 00:00:43,843
probably this is one of the closest places
to where it happened, where I,

22
00:00:44,010 --> 00:00:44,644
got to tell it.

23
00:00:44,644 --> 00:00:48,581
So you might know, I, you know,
I was working as a counselor and a coach

24
00:00:48,581 --> 00:00:51,751
right here at Hall High School,
not too far from where we're doing this.

25
00:00:51,751 --> 00:00:54,320
And my wife was athletic director
at the Watkinson School,

26
00:00:54,320 --> 00:00:56,589
and we had a young family,
and I was coaching different sports

27
00:00:56,589 --> 00:00:59,759
over at Hall, and Sarah's
coaching soccer, and my,

28
00:01:00,360 --> 00:01:03,763
my oldest daughter, who's now,
you know, going to be 29,

29
00:01:04,130 --> 00:01:07,333
was trying out for the local travel soccer
team as an eight year old.

30
00:01:08,034 --> 00:01:12,238
And, you know, we just didn't
want our kid to be bad at sports, right?

31
00:01:12,272 --> 00:01:15,308
You know, we just weren't because we knew
how life giving it was to us.

32
00:01:15,308 --> 00:01:17,577
So we'd hope she'd make the team.

33
00:01:17,577 --> 00:01:20,313
Well, we get the call after the tryout.

34
00:01:20,313 --> 00:01:23,583
Guy says to us, your daughter's
our number one prospect.

35
00:01:24,684 --> 00:01:26,386
And I
was like, dude, she's eight years old.

36
00:01:26,386 --> 00:01:27,787
She's nobody's prospect.

37
00:01:27,787 --> 00:01:29,055
But, you know, still,

38
00:01:29,055 --> 00:01:32,992
you know, it was it still made
you feel good that your kid was good.

39
00:01:32,992 --> 00:01:33,259
Right?

40
00:01:33,259 --> 00:01:37,197
And so she starts to go on
about the Brazilian style of play

41
00:01:37,197 --> 00:01:40,200
that she's going to fit in into a system
and the whole thing.

42
00:01:40,567 --> 00:01:43,002
And after about 20 minutes
or so of like him

43
00:01:43,002 --> 00:01:46,005
talking about the commitment and all this,
I said, well, look,

44
00:01:46,606 --> 00:01:49,476
Elena
showed some interest in playing lacrosse

45
00:01:49,476 --> 00:01:50,043
because my wife

46
00:01:50,043 --> 00:01:53,179
played lacrosse in college, you know,
and I've always thought of soccer

47
00:01:53,179 --> 00:01:54,013
as a fall sport.

48
00:01:54,013 --> 00:01:57,584
But I knew knowing that there was
some commitment in the spring and some.

49
00:01:58,651 --> 00:01:58,985
Right.

50
00:01:58,985 --> 00:02:01,321
As soon as I say that he goes radio silent

51
00:02:02,522 --> 00:02:05,525
kind of
gets angry and says, hold on a second.

52
00:02:05,725 --> 00:02:08,161
And then literally,
as if he's talking to the guy

53
00:02:08,161 --> 00:02:12,098
in the back of the car dealership,
he comes back on like 20 awkward seconds

54
00:02:12,098 --> 00:02:15,101
later and says, we're no longer
interested in your daughter,

55
00:02:15,602 --> 00:02:18,705
simply because as an eight year old,
she was showing

56
00:02:18,705 --> 00:02:21,708
some interest in another sport.

57
00:02:21,774 --> 00:02:24,210
So I said some things
that I probably shouldn't

58
00:02:24,210 --> 00:02:26,513
say on a friend's podcast to this guy.

59
00:02:26,513 --> 00:02:28,348
And I said to my wife that night,
you know,

60
00:02:28,348 --> 00:02:30,450
we're in a position
to do something about this.

61
00:02:30,450 --> 00:02:32,418
Like, you know,
we could shout from the mountaintops,

62
00:02:32,418 --> 00:02:32,785
or we could

63
00:02:32,785 --> 00:02:36,756
actually think about bringing back
the three season athlete, the whole thing.

64
00:02:36,756 --> 00:02:38,758
And we came up with the tagline
that night,

65
00:02:38,758 --> 00:02:40,960
life's too short for just one sport.

66
00:02:40,960 --> 00:02:46,099
And we actually started as a, summer camp
mom and pop camp just for girls.

67
00:02:46,833 --> 00:02:48,601
We had three daughters.

68
00:02:48,601 --> 00:02:51,271
We had a bunch of friends
who had daughters.

69
00:02:51,271 --> 00:02:55,508
We knew we could get them
to at least send their kids, get 64 girls

70
00:02:55,508 --> 00:03:00,480
the first the first summer
over at Watkinson and moms and dads

71
00:03:00,480 --> 00:03:04,083
showed up holding the hands of their sons
and said, we do this for boys.

72
00:03:04,083 --> 00:03:07,487
And to be honest, you know,
I was coaching girls, we had daughters.

73
00:03:07,487 --> 00:03:08,888
I didn't know if we could get boys.

74
00:03:08,888 --> 00:03:11,991
And I said, if you send them,
we'll run the camp for boys.

75
00:03:11,991 --> 00:03:15,228
So we did single gender
our first two years, believe it or not,

76
00:03:15,328 --> 00:03:19,399
three years actually, because then we did
alternating weeks of girls and boys.

77
00:03:19,732 --> 00:03:23,269
But we outgrew Watkinson, the facility,
just when it rained,

78
00:03:23,269 --> 00:03:26,272
there was no turf
and we were eating up the grass.

79
00:03:26,306 --> 00:03:30,510
So luckily
Kingswood Oxford took us over there and

80
00:03:31,744 --> 00:03:34,180
in 2014, it was

81
00:03:34,180 --> 00:03:38,051
maybe five years after we started
the Aspen Institute in Washington

82
00:03:38,051 --> 00:03:41,888
DC contacted us and said,
would you mind if we recognized you

83
00:03:41,888 --> 00:03:46,893
as one of eight model programs
in the United States as like this.

84
00:03:47,160 --> 00:03:49,495
They had a seminal report
called Project Play.

85
00:03:49,495 --> 00:03:51,431
It was reimagining youth sports.

86
00:03:51,431 --> 00:03:54,367
So the elite organizations
were organizations

87
00:03:54,367 --> 00:03:58,972
like Special Olympics, Pop Warner,
the Tony Hawk Foundation,

88
00:03:59,205 --> 00:04:03,343
USA, hockey,
and then Little two for one sports.

89
00:04:03,343 --> 00:04:05,345
And it was crazy like, so I go and I,

90
00:04:05,345 --> 00:04:08,248
you know, Billie Jean King
is there and Michelle Obama is there.

91
00:04:08,248 --> 00:04:10,516
And then there's me like,
and I was like, Mr.

92
00:04:10,516 --> 00:04:12,185
Smith goes to Washington.

93
00:04:12,185 --> 00:04:14,921
But it really
there was no one doing it anymore.

94
00:04:14,921 --> 00:04:15,154
Right?

95
00:04:15,154 --> 00:04:18,191
There was like,
it didn't seem like a novel idea to us,

96
00:04:18,391 --> 00:04:22,462
but we were just like kids playing
more than one sport, not specializing.

97
00:04:22,462 --> 00:04:24,264
That's that's not brilliant.

98
00:04:24,264 --> 00:04:25,898
It's just what we believe in.

99
00:04:25,898 --> 00:04:29,969
Yeah, but no one was programing for it,
so it elevated us to the national stage.

100
00:04:29,969 --> 00:04:32,605
And you know,
I know I'm going on about this, but like,

101
00:04:32,605 --> 00:04:35,475
sometimes I look back and I'm like, wow,
how did this happen man?

102
00:04:35,475 --> 00:04:38,478
Like given given the scope
of what we're doing right now.

103
00:04:38,678 --> 00:04:39,746
I know it's amazing.

104
00:04:39,746 --> 00:04:41,447
And to grow, they always say

105
00:04:41,447 --> 00:04:45,018
like Coca-Cola was once sold
for a quarter here and now it's global.

106
00:04:45,418 --> 00:04:47,287
And now you're all over.
You're international now.

107
00:04:47,287 --> 00:04:48,021
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

108
00:04:48,021 --> 00:04:51,024
So you have again, two for one.

109
00:04:51,090 --> 00:04:52,125
We're with Steve Boyle.

110
00:04:52,125 --> 00:04:55,261
He's the executive director
and co-founder of two for one.

111
00:04:55,728 --> 00:04:57,030
Got my swag, you know.

112
00:04:57,030 --> 00:04:58,264
How do you like it? Two for one.

113
00:04:59,565 --> 00:05:00,867
I'm honored to because

114
00:05:00,867 --> 00:05:03,670
as you can see,
there's some partners on the back.

115
00:05:03,670 --> 00:05:04,771
Yeah, there he is.

116
00:05:04,771 --> 00:05:07,774
The bottom fringe of Fini. Yes. All right.

117
00:05:07,940 --> 00:05:10,076
Very excited to have you.

118
00:05:10,076 --> 00:05:11,110
This a long time coming.

119
00:05:11,110 --> 00:05:14,847
I know we we've talked about getting you
on the podcast and it worked out.

120
00:05:15,014 --> 00:05:18,751
I wish I could say I set it up
that it's 124, but I'm just.

121
00:05:18,751 --> 00:05:21,387
Glad we didn't wait for two, four, one,
two right to do it.

122
00:05:21,387 --> 00:05:22,922
I mean. It's a while away. Yeah.

123
00:05:22,922 --> 00:05:25,892
So it says here
that you can't started in 2008.

124
00:05:27,160 --> 00:05:29,228
So you're going on 16.

125
00:05:29,228 --> 00:05:29,996
What's that. Right.

126
00:05:29,996 --> 00:05:30,630
16 years.

127
00:05:30,630 --> 00:05:32,899
This will be our 17th. 17 years. Yeah.

128
00:05:32,899 --> 00:05:35,268
It goes from ages 5 to 14.

129
00:05:35,268 --> 00:05:38,271
You're at 21,000 kids.

130
00:05:38,538 --> 00:05:41,574
16 states and five countries.

131
00:05:41,574 --> 00:05:44,344
Yeah. Wow. Yeah.
What are the five countries.

132
00:05:44,344 --> 00:05:49,649
So we had, we've done, we have direct
programing going on in Canada.

133
00:05:50,016 --> 00:05:54,053
We've been in outside of Vancouver
for coming on six years.

134
00:05:55,221 --> 00:05:56,723
And then we do programing

135
00:05:56,723 --> 00:06:00,126
in Zambia, Africa and Kenya.

136
00:06:00,827 --> 00:06:03,496
And so, we've consulted

137
00:06:03,496 --> 00:06:06,499
to Australia and India, Mexico.

138
00:06:07,233 --> 00:06:09,569
And while it's not a country,
we actually right now

139
00:06:09,569 --> 00:06:12,572
in conversations we're bringing program
to Puerto Rico as well.

140
00:06:13,106 --> 00:06:15,441
And so we're excited about that.

141
00:06:15,441 --> 00:06:19,345
We did a lot of during Covid,
we became sort of a,

142
00:06:19,612 --> 00:06:22,715
a program that different countries
reached out to because,

143
00:06:23,583 --> 00:06:26,552
we were one of the first to do real

144
00:06:26,552 --> 00:06:29,956
programing with kids during the pandemic.

145
00:06:30,857 --> 00:06:33,860
And part of the way we convinced
some of the schools was like,

146
00:06:33,993 --> 00:06:36,229
you got to let us try it
because you're going

147
00:06:36,229 --> 00:06:39,332
to try to open school in the fall
so we can do some trial and error stuff.

148
00:06:39,332 --> 00:06:42,435
And we we really were able
to, based on best practice

149
00:06:42,435 --> 00:06:45,571
and science, put together
really good quality programing.

150
00:06:45,571 --> 00:06:48,207
And, that was that was crazy, actually.

151
00:06:48,207 --> 00:06:52,678
Just when I look back at that
not too long ago, as far as states go,

152
00:06:54,347 --> 00:06:56,816
you know, we've got really good footprint
in Colorado.

153
00:06:56,816 --> 00:06:59,185
We've been in Boulder
and the Denver area for a long time.

154
00:06:59,185 --> 00:07:00,420
Charlotte, North Carolina,

155
00:07:00,420 --> 00:07:04,390
we're in Englewood, new Jersey,
as well as Englewood, Colorado.

156
00:07:05,458 --> 00:07:07,160
We've,

157
00:07:07,160 --> 00:07:10,163
during pandemic, we did programing
in Indianapolis, Indiana.

158
00:07:10,963 --> 00:07:14,634
You know, our model is one
where we always quip that kids are kids

159
00:07:14,634 --> 00:07:16,068
no matter where you go, right?

160
00:07:16,068 --> 00:07:18,404
You know, regardless of their zip code.

161
00:07:18,404 --> 00:07:21,340
And, we're trying to be more strategic
about where we go.

162
00:07:21,340 --> 00:07:23,309
It used to be
we would chase the tail a little bit.

163
00:07:23,309 --> 00:07:26,312
Someone said, hey, come to Colorado,
we'd be like, okay, we'll come.

164
00:07:26,312 --> 00:07:26,979
That sounds cool.

165
00:07:26,979 --> 00:07:32,251
But now you know, our with our board
and with our growth, we're able

166
00:07:32,251 --> 00:07:36,289
to be more intentional about those places
where we're trying to, to do programing.

167
00:07:36,789 --> 00:07:39,125
So yeah. No, that's amazing.

168
00:07:39,125 --> 00:07:41,594
I mean, and Africa.

169
00:07:41,594 --> 00:07:42,962
So how does that work?

170
00:07:42,962 --> 00:07:46,732
How do you do you reach out to someone
or does someone reach out to you?

171
00:07:46,766 --> 00:07:49,635
I, I'm so interested on how that worked
out. Well.

172
00:07:49,635 --> 00:07:52,271
I'm so grateful that, you know,

173
00:07:52,271 --> 00:07:55,341
you get these sort of random spam
emails, right?

174
00:07:55,341 --> 00:07:58,611
And so and you can usually tell
by the way they're formatted or how,

175
00:07:58,678 --> 00:08:02,114
like dear sir or something like that,
but I got one and that was

176
00:08:02,715 --> 00:08:05,384
it said physical literacy in Kenya.

177
00:08:05,384 --> 00:08:10,022
And I looked up the website
of the gentleman who had sent the email,

178
00:08:10,490 --> 00:08:15,962
and they were legit, you know, but knew,
what they call NGO or not non-governmental

179
00:08:15,962 --> 00:08:19,232
organizations, the equivalent
of being a nonprofit in, in Africa.

180
00:08:20,132 --> 00:08:22,201
And so I set up a zoom call with him.

181
00:08:22,201 --> 00:08:25,304
And this when we started, we were, an LLC.

182
00:08:25,304 --> 00:08:27,273
We were a small business, if you will.

183
00:08:27,273 --> 00:08:30,376
It's kind of a side thing that my wife and
I had been doing all these years.

184
00:08:30,543 --> 00:08:32,912
We looked
and smelled a lot like a nonprofit

185
00:08:32,912 --> 00:08:36,449
because we were giving scholarships
and we were clearly mission driven,

186
00:08:36,449 --> 00:08:40,786
but it was just the way we had set it up,
and we'd always wanted to go nonprofit.

187
00:08:40,786 --> 00:08:44,190
And so in talking with this organization
called wellness for greatness,

188
00:08:45,057 --> 00:08:49,495
we actually before Covid, we were
we were looking to figure out a way

189
00:08:49,495 --> 00:08:52,832
if we could start
a nonprofit arm for them,

190
00:08:52,832 --> 00:08:56,669
and then we would go over and do training
and let them know sort of a two, four

191
00:08:56,669 --> 00:08:57,370
one way.

192
00:08:58,404 --> 00:09:00,273
And then Covid came

193
00:09:00,273 --> 00:09:04,377
and conversations died on the vine
a little bit, and then we rebooted.

194
00:09:04,710 --> 00:09:08,214
And then Omicron came
and Omicron started in South Africa.

195
00:09:08,214 --> 00:09:09,849
And it worked its way up the continent.

196
00:09:09,849 --> 00:09:16,255
And so then during that time in 2021,
we actually did decide to go nonprofit.

197
00:09:16,255 --> 00:09:20,059
So we applied for our 501 C3 in
December of 21.

198
00:09:20,226 --> 00:09:22,962
We were approved in August of 22.

199
00:09:22,962 --> 00:09:26,465
And that is absolutely more
than quadrupled our reach.

200
00:09:27,466 --> 00:09:29,468
It's just because we now

201
00:09:29,468 --> 00:09:32,471
still live in the, in the world
where we are doing,

202
00:09:33,205 --> 00:09:36,976
you know, anti specialization in places
like West Hartford and Denver

203
00:09:36,976 --> 00:09:42,014
and you know, our traditional
what we call parent pay camps, we now are

204
00:09:42,281 --> 00:09:47,486
probably have I don't know multiply times
ten done grant funded programing.

205
00:09:47,520 --> 00:09:50,856
So we're programing year round in places
like Hartford

206
00:09:50,856 --> 00:09:54,260
and New Britain
in in, in in underserved communities.

207
00:09:54,627 --> 00:09:58,230
And two of those underserved communities
are Nairobi, Kenya and Kitt Way, Zambia.

208
00:09:58,564 --> 00:10:02,368
So, last year Carrie and I went over,
we did training.

209
00:10:02,568 --> 00:10:05,871
We have since hired someone to sort of
lead our projects in Africa.

210
00:10:06,238 --> 00:10:09,675
And we're we're down the path
with some organizations

211
00:10:09,675 --> 00:10:11,510
that we could really scale there

212
00:10:11,510 --> 00:10:15,014
because the need is just,
as you can imagine, just so great.

213
00:10:15,581 --> 00:10:19,118
I know it says that you went in January
2024 and, you know,

214
00:10:19,318 --> 00:10:22,555
they predominantly played soccer,
but you introduced ultimate Frisbee

215
00:10:22,555 --> 00:10:23,923
and some other fun sports.

216
00:10:23,923 --> 00:10:25,925
So that's so cool. Yeah, two for one.

217
00:10:25,925 --> 00:10:27,493
Any sport, you know.

218
00:10:30,262 --> 00:10:31,230
No. It's great.

219
00:10:31,230 --> 00:10:33,332
I'm going to shout out some sponsors,
please. Yeah.

220
00:10:33,332 --> 00:10:35,601
So we're here at Maximum Beverage.

221
00:10:35,601 --> 00:10:36,902
Thank you. Maximum beverage.

222
00:10:36,902 --> 00:10:38,904
The Whitney's are excellent sponsors.

223
00:10:38,904 --> 00:10:41,741
Thank you
Direct Line Media Stephanie and Dave.

224
00:10:41,741 --> 00:10:42,441
Thank you.

225
00:10:42,441 --> 00:10:45,778
Keating agency insurance
Brooke golf law group

226
00:10:46,178 --> 00:10:49,248
I'm already for getting keating agency
lumina pizza

227
00:10:50,282 --> 00:10:53,119
the fix ivy float 41

228
00:10:53,119 --> 00:10:55,688
people's bank in parkville market.

229
00:10:55,688 --> 00:10:57,723
Thank you so much for your sponsorship.

230
00:10:57,723 --> 00:10:58,958
Truly means the world.

231
00:10:58,958 --> 00:11:01,861
We're here and West Hartford lock.

232
00:11:01,861 --> 00:11:05,164
So West Hartford lock Eric and Yuri
with West for lock.

233
00:11:05,564 --> 00:11:09,669
What are three keys that make you great
at being the executive director?

234
00:11:10,036 --> 00:11:13,039
Two for one. Wow.

235
00:11:13,873 --> 00:11:16,876
I thought you brought me
with all the hard questions, but,

236
00:11:16,976 --> 00:11:19,979
three keys. So,

237
00:11:20,579 --> 00:11:23,215
I think what's interesting about
even my team.

238
00:11:23,215 --> 00:11:26,218
But, you know, I went to that team is that

239
00:11:26,452 --> 00:11:29,021
we have a just a wealth of experience.

240
00:11:29,021 --> 00:11:31,824
And, you know, I,
we do programing in communities.

241
00:11:31,824 --> 00:11:33,092
We do them in schools. Right.

242
00:11:33,092 --> 00:11:36,862
And so I've spent my whole life
around kids

243
00:11:36,862 --> 00:11:39,865
and working with institutions
and understanding

244
00:11:39,865 --> 00:11:44,103
what are those things that are challenges
for schools and communities,

245
00:11:44,403 --> 00:11:47,239
and what are those things
that can be a value add.

246
00:11:47,239 --> 00:11:51,010
And so whenever we go into places,
we're always trying to find what's the win

247
00:11:51,010 --> 00:11:55,047
win situation for the kids,
but also understanding it's educators

248
00:11:55,047 --> 00:11:56,649
who are delivering it,
or there's community

249
00:11:56,649 --> 00:11:58,951
based organizations
and there's challenges with that.

250
00:11:58,951 --> 00:12:02,021
So I think I think our experience around
understanding

251
00:12:02,021 --> 00:12:05,224
governmental agencies, understanding
public schools, private schools, the

252
00:12:05,958 --> 00:12:09,795
how schools run and then what
the needs are for families as well.

253
00:12:09,795 --> 00:12:11,130
I think that's important.

254
00:12:12,732 --> 00:12:15,101
I'm a I come from a family of eight.

255
00:12:15,101 --> 00:12:18,270
I'm the I'm the oldest middle child,
as I like to say, because I got,

256
00:12:19,004 --> 00:12:23,976
you know, there's three older brothers and
then there's three, two girls and a boy.

257
00:12:23,976 --> 00:12:24,543
They're younger than me.

258
00:12:24,543 --> 00:12:26,746
And my my brother
David are the middle are the middle ones,

259
00:12:26,746 --> 00:12:28,347
and I'm the oldest of the middle ones,

260
00:12:28,347 --> 00:12:30,382
but I'm kind of the classic middle
child, right?

261
00:12:30,382 --> 00:12:32,918
Like,
I, I worry about everybody, you know?

262
00:12:32,918 --> 00:12:36,122
And so I want I want people to be happy,
you know, and,

263
00:12:36,155 --> 00:12:39,158
and in my family
that was they people just sort of knew it.

264
00:12:39,391 --> 00:12:42,328
And in fact, my we lost my mom

265
00:12:42,328 --> 00:12:46,465
two years ago this week and I got I,
the family asked me to do the eulogy.

266
00:12:46,465 --> 00:12:46,699
Right.

267
00:12:46,699 --> 00:12:51,470
You know, so I think I think I come
from a place of empathy and,

268
00:12:52,471 --> 00:12:55,775
worrying about
others and I think they're there to value

269
00:12:55,775 --> 00:12:59,779
in a nonprofit space, right, to really
want to be concerned for what's happening

270
00:12:59,779 --> 00:13:02,782
in other people's lives
and making sure that they're happy.

271
00:13:03,182 --> 00:13:05,417
Three keys.

272
00:13:05,417 --> 00:13:06,252
You know, it's funny.

273
00:13:06,252 --> 00:13:09,555
I, you know, there's a guidance counselor
for a long time, and I would often say,

274
00:13:09,555 --> 00:13:12,992
like, you know, when you get an interview,
like one of the things I would always

275
00:13:13,192 --> 00:13:15,828
people would ask is like in an interview,
what's your greatest strength?

276
00:13:15,828 --> 00:13:18,664
And I'd say my competitiveness,

277
00:13:18,664 --> 00:13:19,965
you know, and I was an athlete. Right.

278
00:13:19,965 --> 00:13:22,067
And so and I had all these brothers
and so we fun.

279
00:13:22,067 --> 00:13:23,869
And what's your greatest weakness.

280
00:13:23,869 --> 00:13:25,538
My competitiveness.

281
00:13:25,538 --> 00:13:25,838
Right.

282
00:13:25,838 --> 00:13:29,642
Because and in fact, in the work we do now
around social emotional learning,

283
00:13:29,642 --> 00:13:32,211
it's really how to manage your anger,
how to channel it.

284
00:13:32,211 --> 00:13:34,914
And competitiveness
and anger can be two separate things.

285
00:13:34,914 --> 00:13:37,917
So I really think that, you know, I,
I'm driven.

286
00:13:38,684 --> 00:13:40,986
But I think I'm driven in a mission
driven way,

287
00:13:40,986 --> 00:13:45,324
you know, that it's not for, you know,
owning a certain house or having things.

288
00:13:45,324 --> 00:13:48,027
It's really for leaving a legacy.
You know, I'm at that.

289
00:13:48,027 --> 00:13:52,264
I'm approaching my 60s and, you know, I,
I realize we're on to something here

290
00:13:52,264 --> 00:13:56,035
in terms of being able to change lives and
change communities and change cultures.

291
00:13:56,035 --> 00:13:56,635
And so,

292
00:13:57,803 --> 00:13:58,938
I think my competitiveness

293
00:13:58,938 --> 00:14:03,509
helps in that case
because I'm driven to like,

294
00:14:03,509 --> 00:14:07,112
make sure we get good stuff done
before I'm gone

295
00:14:07,112 --> 00:14:09,648
and that there's systems in place,
you know? So I love it.

296
00:14:09,648 --> 00:14:10,716
Yeah, yeah.

297
00:14:10,716 --> 00:14:14,420
So I've heard empathy, knowledge and,

298
00:14:15,688 --> 00:14:18,824
drive and motivation competitiveness
I like it.

299
00:14:18,824 --> 00:14:20,860
Yeah. So middle child.

300
00:14:20,860 --> 00:14:22,394
Yeah I'm the oldest child.
So what's that say?

301
00:14:22,394 --> 00:14:22,895
I don't know,

302
00:14:22,895 --> 00:14:26,899
I thought that's why I went into teaching
because I was, I don't know, so funny.

303
00:14:26,899 --> 00:14:28,167
The middle child.

304
00:14:28,167 --> 00:14:30,402
Everyone has a drive in a way a story.

305
00:14:30,402 --> 00:14:32,338
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, it was great.

306
00:14:32,338 --> 00:14:34,039
Your three kids were amazing.
That's so good.

307
00:14:34,039 --> 00:14:36,675
Thank you. Two for one.
Executive director and co-founder.

308
00:14:36,675 --> 00:14:39,078
Who are you co-founding it
with? My wife, Carrie.

309
00:14:39,078 --> 00:14:42,147
Yeah. So, Carrie grew up in Baltimore.

310
00:14:43,983 --> 00:14:45,150
Her mom,

311
00:14:45,150 --> 00:14:48,087
believe it or not, was Miss New Jersey
in the Miss America pageant.

312
00:14:48,087 --> 00:14:50,723
And brilliant woman and her dad.

313
00:14:50,723 --> 00:14:53,893
I wrote a blog once
called them the original two for one.

314
00:14:53,893 --> 00:14:56,762
Or, he was a Golden Gloves boxer.

315
00:14:56,762 --> 00:15:00,432
He was, college basketball,
football and baseball player.

316
00:15:00,432 --> 00:15:03,435
Cheese. He was a teaching tennis pro.

317
00:15:03,636 --> 00:15:04,904
Just an amazing guy.

318
00:15:04,904 --> 00:15:08,641
But he was a long a 44 year teacher
coach at the Gilman School in Baltimore.

319
00:15:08,974 --> 00:15:11,110
People might know Gilman
because there's a recent

320
00:15:11,110 --> 00:15:14,246
alumni there named Luigi,
but we won't go into that right now.

321
00:15:14,947 --> 00:15:15,247
Okay.

322
00:15:15,247 --> 00:15:20,653
And, he was Senator
Paul Sarbanes longest standing advisor.

323
00:15:20,653 --> 00:15:23,789
So Paul Sarbanes, Sarbanes
Oxley act people sometimes will know that,

324
00:15:24,657 --> 00:15:28,594
so he, he was like
and he was a good friend to me.

325
00:15:28,627 --> 00:15:30,796
And I'm not just saying that
because on this podcast,

326
00:15:30,796 --> 00:15:33,799
like I really miss him
when he's been going on with a decade.

327
00:15:33,832 --> 00:15:36,835
So one of the things we're doing
this year is we're,

328
00:15:36,936 --> 00:15:39,505
we're starting a pilot in Washington, DC,

329
00:15:39,505 --> 00:15:42,441
but we're also going to look
to do a program

330
00:15:42,441 --> 00:15:45,544
in Carrie's dad's name in Baltimore,
because that's where he's from.

331
00:15:45,544 --> 00:15:48,714
He was
he was known as a civil rights activist.

332
00:15:49,081 --> 00:15:51,283
Helped integrate
a lot of schools down there.

333
00:15:51,283 --> 00:15:54,486
So we're going to try to bring our model
to Baltimore and raise funds

334
00:15:54,486 --> 00:15:57,589
in his honor, to, to get programs
starting down there.

335
00:15:57,589 --> 00:16:00,259
So, you know,
so Carrie grew up in a sports world.

336
00:16:00,259 --> 00:16:01,260
Heard her.

337
00:16:01,260 --> 00:16:03,362
Are you New York Giants family? Yes.

338
00:16:03,362 --> 00:16:06,165
So her,
her godfather's guy named George Young.

339
00:16:06,165 --> 00:16:08,033
He'll go hired Bill Parcell.

340
00:16:08,033 --> 00:16:10,135
He was the general manager of the Giants.
Yeah.

341
00:16:10,135 --> 00:16:11,737
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

342
00:16:11,737 --> 00:16:13,572
So he was the general manager.

343
00:16:13,572 --> 00:16:16,342
He wound up, leaving the Giants and headed

344
00:16:16,342 --> 00:16:19,411
NFL Europe before
they were doing all that stuff started.

345
00:16:19,411 --> 00:16:20,145
Get it started. Yeah.

346
00:16:20,145 --> 00:16:23,148
But he
he passed away about 15 years ago or so.

347
00:16:23,315 --> 00:16:26,485
But she's just,
you know, my our first date was 50 yard

348
00:16:26,485 --> 00:16:28,420
line of the New York Giants
versus Minnesota Vikings.

349
00:16:28,420 --> 00:16:29,288
So yeah.

350
00:16:29,288 --> 00:16:30,089
Yeah. Beat it. Yeah.

351
00:16:30,089 --> 00:16:32,024
It's awesome. Yeah. Go Giants.

352
00:16:32,024 --> 00:16:34,293
Great. Go Giants man. Yeah.

353
00:16:34,293 --> 00:16:36,562
So your father in law was an amazing
human being. Jeez.

354
00:16:36,562 --> 00:16:36,862
Yeah.

355
00:16:36,862 --> 00:16:39,965
Boxing. Basketball baseball. Football.

356
00:16:39,965 --> 00:16:40,599
Oh my god.

357
00:16:40,599 --> 00:16:41,700
And you know,

358
00:16:41,700 --> 00:16:44,970
and so Carrie always joked
that she couldn't date anybody from,

359
00:16:44,970 --> 00:16:46,472
you know, because she was in there
all girl school

360
00:16:46,472 --> 00:16:47,940
across the street from where he was.

361
00:16:47,940 --> 00:16:50,943
And no one wanted to date
Coach Slaughter's daughter because he was

362
00:16:51,143 --> 00:16:52,878
he was old school tough guy,
you know what I mean?

363
00:16:52,878 --> 00:16:56,582
But he used to call me a snack
and I go watch a snack.

364
00:16:56,849 --> 00:16:59,251
He goes, you're a sensitive new age guy.

365
00:16:59,251 --> 00:17:00,853
Oh, okay, I like that.

366
00:17:01,920 --> 00:17:02,788
No names for that.

367
00:17:02,788 --> 00:17:05,090
No, but. Smell right here. Yeah.

368
00:17:05,090 --> 00:17:06,225
That's so funny.

369
00:17:06,225 --> 00:17:08,160
Yeah. He was
he was a good man, a good man.

370
00:17:08,160 --> 00:17:10,562
And we're excited
to actually do something in his honor.

371
00:17:10,562 --> 00:17:14,166
It's great to pay tribute to him
and honor his his legacy.

372
00:17:14,166 --> 00:17:15,601
That's amazing. Yeah.

373
00:17:15,601 --> 00:17:18,303
And I think he motivated us
to do this, right?

374
00:17:18,303 --> 00:17:21,840
I mean, he
he was stoked when we started it, right?

375
00:17:21,840 --> 00:17:23,742
Because he was sort of like,
oh, that's great.

376
00:17:23,742 --> 00:17:25,677
But he was frustrated as well like that.

377
00:17:25,677 --> 00:17:29,882
It was a need because for him especially,
you know, the era he grew up in,

378
00:17:31,016 --> 00:17:32,951
it's just the idea

379
00:17:32,951 --> 00:17:35,954
of not playing more than one
sport was crazy.

380
00:17:36,121 --> 00:17:37,089
He had a great line.

381
00:17:37,089 --> 00:17:39,291
We walked into FSA one day

382
00:17:39,291 --> 00:17:42,294
and, you know, because our kids were doing
the travel soccer thing

383
00:17:42,561 --> 00:17:45,397
and he walks in and he looks around,
kind of does a slow roll.

384
00:17:45,397 --> 00:17:47,399
He goes, you know what this place is?

385
00:17:47,399 --> 00:17:50,736
He goes,
this is a shrine to Overinvolved parents.

386
00:17:51,904 --> 00:17:53,505
And I thought very fitting.

387
00:17:53,505 --> 00:17:57,009
But again, you think about it,
you know a guy from that generation that,

388
00:17:57,242 --> 00:18:01,947
that to have an indoor sports
arena to play an outdoor game

389
00:18:02,581 --> 00:18:05,784
and it's packed
with parents on the sidelines

390
00:18:05,784 --> 00:18:09,421
screaming at coaches and cheering
their kids on or yelling directions.

391
00:18:09,922 --> 00:18:13,559
It was we used to call that a park, right.

392
00:18:13,625 --> 00:18:16,228
And, you know,
regardless of the time of year.

393
00:18:16,228 --> 00:18:18,430
So anyway,

394
00:18:18,430 --> 00:18:20,165
he had a lot of influence on us as well.

395
00:18:20,165 --> 00:18:21,266
Nice. Yeah.

396
00:18:21,266 --> 00:18:22,434
Well, I'm glad you get to honor him.

397
00:18:22,434 --> 00:18:25,437
That's great. Yeah.

398
00:18:25,838 --> 00:18:27,406
And also congratulations.

399
00:18:27,406 --> 00:18:30,742
I mean, it's a year late, but you received
the catalyst endowment fund.

400
00:18:30,976 --> 00:18:32,945
Actually, no, that was this year.
That was this year. Yeah.

401
00:18:32,945 --> 00:18:36,115
We applied in the, in the fall,
and we won November.

402
00:18:36,115 --> 00:18:39,918
Yeah, yeah, yeah,
we received a two year grant. So,

403
00:18:40,953 --> 00:18:41,220
Yeah.

404
00:18:41,220 --> 00:18:42,721
So the Catalyst Endowment Fund

405
00:18:42,721 --> 00:18:45,491
is part of the Hartford Foundation
for Public Giving.

406
00:18:45,491 --> 00:18:47,259
You know, that's the new thing for us
two, right?

407
00:18:47,259 --> 00:18:50,062
Is that we we had been lifelong educator.

408
00:18:50,062 --> 00:18:52,831
So this idea of writing grants and,
you know, finding

409
00:18:52,831 --> 00:18:57,469
what are the sources of funds and who
who would be interested in being a donor.

410
00:18:57,469 --> 00:19:01,740
So we have to constantly be on the lookout
and also work really hard to put forth

411
00:19:01,740 --> 00:19:04,510
good grants
because the they're competitive

412
00:19:04,510 --> 00:19:06,111
and the qualifications for them.

413
00:19:06,111 --> 00:19:07,045
You got to make sure

414
00:19:07,045 --> 00:19:11,216
like you're doing things that are,
you know, budget and the whole piece.

415
00:19:11,817 --> 00:19:15,254
And so this year's grant like fit
the like the theme each year

416
00:19:15,254 --> 00:19:18,690
that catalyst Group has a different theme
and it just fit us

417
00:19:18,690 --> 00:19:22,161
because it was really around
access to youth sports,

418
00:19:23,529 --> 00:19:25,531
and developing
leadership through youth sports.

419
00:19:25,531 --> 00:19:28,233
And that we do that in Hartford right now.

420
00:19:28,233 --> 00:19:31,236
And with a lot of Covid money,
Esser money,

421
00:19:31,436 --> 00:19:34,439
you know, people would call it
stimulus money, what have you.

422
00:19:34,473 --> 00:19:37,876
Those funds have all dried up
in the last 12 months.

423
00:19:37,876 --> 00:19:41,213
And so we're becoming more
and more dependent on

424
00:19:41,213 --> 00:19:44,516
on grants and corporate ownership
and individual ownership.

425
00:19:44,950 --> 00:19:48,320
And so, we applied for 69,000.

426
00:19:49,121 --> 00:19:50,989
They awarded a 64,000.

427
00:19:50,989 --> 00:19:54,259
So it's going to allow us
to start a brand new, full year program

428
00:19:54,259 --> 00:19:57,262
at the Sand School in, in Hartford.

429
00:19:57,362 --> 00:19:59,865
It's going to allow us to continue at West
Middle School.

430
00:19:59,865 --> 00:20:01,200
These are both community schools.

431
00:20:01,200 --> 00:20:04,303
Like when I say community schools,
they're like in Hartford,

432
00:20:04,303 --> 00:20:06,205
you've got magnet schools,
you got charter schools,

433
00:20:06,205 --> 00:20:08,340
you got neighborhood schools
or community schools.

434
00:20:08,340 --> 00:20:11,410
Community schools are where kids walk,
you know, like there's very few busses.

435
00:20:12,144 --> 00:20:17,182
And so, and they tend to be poorer
schools, and with less resources.

436
00:20:17,583 --> 00:20:19,618
So we're so psyched to have gotten that.

437
00:20:19,618 --> 00:20:21,286
The other thing
it's going to allow us to do

438
00:20:21,286 --> 00:20:24,856
is increase our partnership with the center for Healing and Justice through Sports.

439
00:20:26,091 --> 00:20:27,693
They're a national organization

440
00:20:27,693 --> 00:20:31,830
that, does coach
training through a trauma informed lens.

441
00:20:31,830 --> 00:20:35,867
And so because we do so much work around
social emotional learning and sports,

442
00:20:36,435 --> 00:20:39,638
but we're programmers and their trainers,
they've become a great partner of ours.

443
00:20:39,638 --> 00:20:42,641
So they're going to come into Hartford
and do two live trainings.

444
00:20:43,141 --> 00:20:45,611
For anybody in the Hartford community
that wants to come,

445
00:20:45,611 --> 00:20:50,015
we're already partnering with Active City
Hartford, with Crec coaches, with,

446
00:20:50,215 --> 00:20:53,185
Hartford Public School
coaches, with UConn.

447
00:20:53,185 --> 00:20:57,923
We're hoping to get 150 people to come do
this training free for everybody.

448
00:20:57,923 --> 00:20:59,491
Well done with this funding.

449
00:20:59,491 --> 00:21:01,260
But the other thing it's really cool

450
00:21:01,260 --> 00:21:05,430
is that they're going to help us digitize
our our training platform.

451
00:21:05,430 --> 00:21:10,068
So like in the next week,
I've got I'm training people in Norwich,

452
00:21:10,102 --> 00:21:16,241
Hartford, East Hartford, Washington
DC, Africa all delivering our program.

453
00:21:16,475 --> 00:21:19,678
We can't do live training
as much as we'd like to do.

454
00:21:19,711 --> 00:21:23,982
So they're going to help us digitize
our online modules in a way

455
00:21:23,982 --> 00:21:27,085
that we're not going to lose efficacy
in terms of it, there's

456
00:21:27,085 --> 00:21:30,622
nothing better than in-person training,
but as we scale, there's a reality to it.

457
00:21:31,223 --> 00:21:33,558
Center for Healing and Justice
Through Sports is partnered.

458
00:21:33,558 --> 00:21:36,495
In fact, they're up there at Nike
headquarters in Oregon right now.

459
00:21:36,495 --> 00:21:38,063
They're they're backed by Nike.

460
00:21:39,064 --> 00:21:41,300
They just
got they're just so good at what they do.

461
00:21:41,300 --> 00:21:43,502
I mean, you and I are lifelong
teachers, right?

462
00:21:43,502 --> 00:21:44,636
We all know there's like,

463
00:21:44,636 --> 00:21:47,639
good professional development
and there's like, why am I sitting here?

464
00:21:47,639 --> 00:21:48,807
Professional development.

465
00:21:48,807 --> 00:21:52,778
They do the best professional development
I've ever been a part of.

466
00:21:52,778 --> 00:21:56,315
I'm not just saying that
like we did one, in Hartford last year.

467
00:21:56,315 --> 00:21:58,950
They came up and it was 5:38 p.m.

468
00:21:58,950 --> 00:22:00,452
on a school night.

469
00:22:00,452 --> 00:22:03,455
Teachers and coaches in there,
some of them were told they had to go

470
00:22:03,689 --> 00:22:05,390
and the first people were in the back.

471
00:22:05,390 --> 00:22:07,993
Like all right,
when's this going to be over?

472
00:22:07,993 --> 00:22:11,463
It was 830 for a PD that ended at 8:00.

473
00:22:11,463 --> 00:22:14,733
No one had checked their watch
and people were literally angry

474
00:22:14,833 --> 00:22:17,102
when they saw what time it was
because we had to end.

475
00:22:17,102 --> 00:22:18,537
We had to get out of the school
we were in.

476
00:22:18,537 --> 00:22:21,340
It was just that good.
It was that engaging.

477
00:22:21,340 --> 00:22:22,774
So yeah. We're there's a. Lot.

478
00:22:22,774 --> 00:22:23,942
Yeah, we're super stoked.

479
00:22:23,942 --> 00:22:24,476
And the fact

480
00:22:24,476 --> 00:22:28,380
that we got some funding, through, through
this grant is huge for us.

481
00:22:29,081 --> 00:22:30,849
Yeah.
That's amazing. Yeah. Congratulations.

482
00:22:30,849 --> 00:22:31,283
Thanks, man.

483
00:22:31,283 --> 00:22:33,418
Yeah. What's top stand for?

484
00:22:33,418 --> 00:22:36,121
Top thinking on purpose. All right. So,

485
00:22:37,422 --> 00:22:40,058
crazy story on her on how this one
started.

486
00:22:40,058 --> 00:22:41,993
Right. So,

487
00:22:41,993 --> 00:22:45,731
I'm in my mid mid 30s teaching
and coaching over and over at whole.

488
00:22:45,731 --> 00:22:50,936
I got a young family and,
I actually was involved in the rescue of,

489
00:22:52,237 --> 00:22:53,305
in a faculty meeting.

490
00:22:53,305 --> 00:22:55,841
A colleague had a heart attack.

491
00:22:55,841 --> 00:23:01,179
She flatlined, and,
I and another colleague did CPR

492
00:23:01,279 --> 00:23:04,983
in such a way that we were able to
the defibrillator was able

493
00:23:04,983 --> 00:23:06,418
to do what it's supposed to do.

494
00:23:06,418 --> 00:23:09,654
And so they say that 3% of all people who,

495
00:23:10,021 --> 00:23:13,024
flatlined make it to the hospital alive.

496
00:23:13,091 --> 00:23:17,996
And of those 3%,
only 3% don't have any brain damage.

497
00:23:18,230 --> 00:23:22,567
Well, this colleague called me three days
later to say I'm okay.

498
00:23:23,034 --> 00:23:25,637
And so I didn't know it at the time,

499
00:23:25,637 --> 00:23:28,640
but I then developed

500
00:23:28,874 --> 00:23:32,411
I had a I had a PTSD response to that,
not realizing.

501
00:23:32,411 --> 00:23:35,414
And I went up in the hospital myself
four times.

502
00:23:35,447 --> 00:23:38,550
The first three times they checked me
for heart issues and the whole thing

503
00:23:38,550 --> 00:23:41,319
because I was having chest pains and race
and thing. And the fourth time they said,

504
00:23:42,421 --> 00:23:44,055
you got to go to the psychiatrist.

505
00:23:44,055 --> 00:23:48,059
So little did
I know I was having a panic attacks.

506
00:23:48,260 --> 00:23:50,262
I'd always suffered from anxiety,
but I didn't know that.

507
00:23:50,262 --> 00:23:55,133
And I manage it through emotion and humor
and just ways that young guys do.

508
00:23:55,133 --> 00:23:56,101
Right.

509
00:23:56,101 --> 00:23:59,337
And so,
it was really humbling for the counselor

510
00:23:59,337 --> 00:24:02,340
to have to go see a counselor. And,

511
00:24:02,741 --> 00:24:05,310
but it literally

512
00:24:05,310 --> 00:24:08,847
is changing thousands of lives
around the world because that happened.

513
00:24:08,847 --> 00:24:13,018
So we I had to learn what's called
cognitive behavioral therapy.

514
00:24:13,652 --> 00:24:18,857
And it's basically allowing yourself to
to not let the anxiety creep in to like,

515
00:24:18,857 --> 00:24:22,994
use your brain to tell yourself
this is what's happening and use

516
00:24:22,994 --> 00:24:28,133
strategies to distract yourself from it,
and to prevent it from consuming you.

517
00:24:28,633 --> 00:24:30,902
So tap came from that.

518
00:24:30,902 --> 00:24:35,307
So we created this sort of a marriage
of different social

519
00:24:35,307 --> 00:24:37,142
emotional learning platforms
that are out there.

520
00:24:37,142 --> 00:24:39,911
A lot of people are familiar
with a ruler. Second step,

521
00:24:41,713 --> 00:24:44,149
and we created this one

522
00:24:44,149 --> 00:24:47,285
to have a sports sort of focus on it,
but it used.

523
00:24:47,452 --> 00:24:51,323
So the strategy that I learned
that helped me the most was

524
00:24:51,323 --> 00:24:54,960
when I felt the anxiety coming on
would be able to quickly do some breathing

525
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:56,628
that would take me to my favorite place

526
00:24:56,628 --> 00:24:59,631
in the world, which was up in Maine,
on the beach with my family.

527
00:25:00,866 --> 00:25:05,437
And so I had started to talk to people
about wanting to do this with the kids

528
00:25:05,437 --> 00:25:07,672
I was working with
and bringing it into the school.

529
00:25:07,672 --> 00:25:11,076
And so a lot of people like, well,
that mindfulness or that, you know,

530
00:25:11,076 --> 00:25:14,079
mindfulness, brainwashing and I'm like,
no, it's not.

531
00:25:14,112 --> 00:25:15,180
So someone said, you know,

532
00:25:15,180 --> 00:25:19,017
what they call it in, the Army,
they call it strategic thinking.

533
00:25:19,618 --> 00:25:22,621
And I thought to myself, all right,
that's kind of cool, because then anybody

534
00:25:22,621 --> 00:25:26,057
that's like
anti, you know, mindfulness or whatever.

535
00:25:26,591 --> 00:25:31,129
So I came up with the idea of top
thinking on purpose.

536
00:25:31,129 --> 00:25:31,363
Right.

537
00:25:31,363 --> 00:25:36,535
There's an intention ality of, you know,
John Kabat-Zinn definition of mindfulness

538
00:25:36,801 --> 00:25:39,871
literally says
thinking on purpose in there.

539
00:25:40,171 --> 00:25:41,806
So we got top self.

540
00:25:41,806 --> 00:25:45,644
And so what we do is we help kids
identify the emotions they're feeling.

541
00:25:46,211 --> 00:25:47,245
No judgment.

542
00:25:47,245 --> 00:25:49,781
Right. You're angry,
you're anxious, you're whatever.

543
00:25:49,781 --> 00:25:52,551
And I always just lead with kids.
And I get anxious a lot.

544
00:25:52,551 --> 00:25:54,953
I get nervous
and that helps calm them down.

545
00:25:54,953 --> 00:25:58,490
And then we just give them strategies
for how to go from how they're feeling

546
00:25:58,523 --> 00:25:59,658
to how they want to feel.

547
00:25:59,658 --> 00:26:03,061
And there's an emoji based image
that we have it up on our website.

548
00:26:04,029 --> 00:26:06,565
We have that poster
hanging in all the schools that we do.

549
00:26:06,565 --> 00:26:09,701
So we start all of our programs
just normalizing social

550
00:26:09,701 --> 00:26:10,635
emotional learning, right?

551
00:26:10,635 --> 00:26:12,837
That it's okay to get angry.

552
00:26:12,837 --> 00:26:14,372
It's okay to be nervous.

553
00:26:14,372 --> 00:26:15,941
It's okay to feel sad.

554
00:26:15,941 --> 00:26:19,744
It's just not okay to live in that space
if you can do something about it.

555
00:26:20,278 --> 00:26:23,281
And the reason it works so well is because

556
00:26:23,615 --> 00:26:27,085
sports are the most authentic classroom
for teaching school, right?

557
00:26:27,719 --> 00:26:31,523
Kids get they get nervous,
they get upset, right?

558
00:26:31,556 --> 00:26:33,792
And they get upset about different things.
He fouled me.

559
00:26:33,792 --> 00:26:35,060
He pushed me.

560
00:26:35,060 --> 00:26:37,629
She's not
she's not passing the ball to me.

561
00:26:37,629 --> 00:26:40,632
My mom and dad didn't come to the game
and they told me they were going to,

562
00:26:40,632 --> 00:26:43,134
you know, like there's
all different emotions that happen.

563
00:26:43,134 --> 00:26:45,670
Whereas a school counselor
I used to go in and have to do a lecture

564
00:26:45,670 --> 00:26:47,138
on social emotional learning.

565
00:26:47,138 --> 00:26:49,975
So I'd be like, all right,
make pretend you're angry right now.

566
00:26:49,975 --> 00:26:51,943
You know, like that's not helpful.

567
00:26:51,943 --> 00:26:55,847
And then you leave and they don't forget
what you taught them in our program.

568
00:26:56,281 --> 00:26:58,516
They really are angry.
They really are upset.

569
00:26:58,516 --> 00:26:58,883
They really.

570
00:26:58,883 --> 00:27:03,121
And then they can use the strategies
that we used to start the lesson.

571
00:27:03,121 --> 00:27:05,256
And it's it's every day, right.

572
00:27:05,256 --> 00:27:07,292
We start every day with it.

573
00:27:07,292 --> 00:27:09,361
But it's 2 or 3 minutes. We normalize it.

574
00:27:09,361 --> 00:27:13,598
We help them understand, like,
you know, superheroes have anxiety.

575
00:27:14,733 --> 00:27:17,869
NBA stars, why do they take a deep breath
before they take a foul shot?

576
00:27:17,869 --> 00:27:20,405
Why does the kicker try
to calm themselves down?

577
00:27:20,405 --> 00:27:24,309
Why do people get hyped up before a game
so that they can understand the value

578
00:27:24,309 --> 00:27:26,411
of controlling
and regulating their emotions?

579
00:27:26,411 --> 00:27:29,614
So you don't want to get a technical foul
or a yellow card?

580
00:27:29,614 --> 00:27:29,981
Yeah.

581
00:27:29,981 --> 00:27:32,717
Or yell at your coach
because he pulled you out of the game.

582
00:27:32,717 --> 00:27:34,052
Yeah. Yeah.

583
00:27:34,052 --> 00:27:38,456
Now it's so interesting in the breathing
is a very helpful mindfulness breathing.

584
00:27:38,690 --> 00:27:38,923
Yeah.

585
00:27:38,923 --> 00:27:42,961
You know, as a teacher like you deal with
you probably there's so many teachers

586
00:27:42,961 --> 00:27:47,098
now, especially coming out of Covid
that say so much of their work

587
00:27:47,098 --> 00:27:51,269
is really on self-regulation and classroom
management, behavior management.

588
00:27:51,269 --> 00:27:52,671
And the PE teachers

589
00:27:52,671 --> 00:27:56,441
that we've been doing this program
with, it's a before after school program.

590
00:27:56,775 --> 00:27:59,711
They ask us, can I use this
during my PE or health class?

591
00:27:59,711 --> 00:28:00,712
We're like, absolutely.

592
00:28:00,712 --> 00:28:05,050
And every single one of them does it
because while they have other things

593
00:28:05,050 --> 00:28:05,784
they've been trained

594
00:28:05,784 --> 00:28:09,621
in, they said, nothing works like this
because it's just quick, you know,

595
00:28:10,789 --> 00:28:11,823
That's awesome.

596
00:28:11,823 --> 00:28:14,192
Thinking on purpose top.

597
00:28:14,192 --> 00:28:14,526
Yeah.

598
00:28:14,526 --> 00:28:18,596
So we just presented
at the Castle conference in, in Chicago.

599
00:28:18,596 --> 00:28:22,567
So Doctor Julie Goldstein, who used to
she was principal of, Breakthrough

600
00:28:22,600 --> 00:28:26,805
Magnet South, which was number one
magnet school in America in 2015.

601
00:28:27,372 --> 00:28:30,842
She then was, principal at Hartford
Magnet, Trinity College Academy,

602
00:28:30,842 --> 00:28:31,643
where we poached her.

603
00:28:31,643 --> 00:28:34,546
She's now our, chief program officer.

604
00:28:34,546 --> 00:28:38,116
We actually just changed her title
to director of strategic Initiatives.

605
00:28:38,516 --> 00:28:41,753
She she got her
doctorate studying top shelf.

606
00:28:41,853 --> 00:28:45,757
And, so it's now research
back, evidence based.

607
00:28:46,024 --> 00:28:48,059
And we were the only youth sport

608
00:28:48,059 --> 00:28:51,963
development program at Castle in Chicago
this year, presenting our research.

609
00:28:51,963 --> 00:28:56,134
And, you know, we've got
every all the schools we're going to now,

610
00:28:56,534 --> 00:28:59,637
that piece is obviously a big sell
for them because,

611
00:28:59,637 --> 00:29:02,674
you know, social emotional learning
is something it's not a buzzword.

612
00:29:02,674 --> 00:29:04,442
They realize how important it really is.

613
00:29:04,442 --> 00:29:06,644
So we do second step in schools.

614
00:29:06,644 --> 00:29:08,012
Yeah yeah yeah.

615
00:29:08,012 --> 00:29:09,714
It's similar. It's just you know, it's

616
00:29:10,882 --> 00:29:12,617
in my opinion because I know all of them.

617
00:29:12,617 --> 00:29:15,820
It's just a little more authentic,
especially for our setting.

618
00:29:15,820 --> 00:29:18,690
And you're
the goal is to get to home base.

619
00:29:18,690 --> 00:29:21,259
So there's a sports
sort of analogy with that.

620
00:29:21,259 --> 00:29:23,161
So we have emojis on the outside.

621
00:29:23,161 --> 00:29:24,896
And then it's like
how do you get to home base.

622
00:29:24,896 --> 00:29:27,065
And people know home base and hide
and seek.

623
00:29:27,065 --> 00:29:29,400
It's a safe place in baseball or kickball.

624
00:29:29,400 --> 00:29:32,904
It's you're trying to score there, so
you're always trying to get to home base.

625
00:29:32,904 --> 00:29:35,373
That's the strategy we use.

626
00:29:35,373 --> 00:29:39,077
Well, what's PLP plps.

627
00:29:39,077 --> 00:29:41,646
All right.
So that's another kind of cool acronyms.

628
00:29:41,646 --> 00:29:41,913
Yeah.

629
00:29:41,913 --> 00:29:44,916
Cool thing
we added into our program that just,

630
00:29:47,152 --> 00:29:48,686
I had always known

631
00:29:48,686 --> 00:29:52,423
as a teacher and a coach
that if I could get my players

632
00:29:52,724 --> 00:29:56,427
to teach a skill that I had taught them,
they would own it more.

633
00:29:56,661 --> 00:29:57,362
All right.

634
00:29:57,362 --> 00:29:58,263
The other thing is, we were

635
00:29:58,263 --> 00:30:01,733
trying to figure out a creative way
to get more kids involved in our programs.

636
00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:05,103
So PLP stands for Physical Literacy Pal.

637
00:30:05,103 --> 00:30:08,673
So when we got that Aspen
Institute recognition,

638
00:30:08,673 --> 00:30:13,211
we also helped write the United States
White paper on physical literacy.

639
00:30:13,211 --> 00:30:14,913
So we're contributors to that.

640
00:30:14,913 --> 00:30:18,349
And people have seen myself
in our organization as sort of experts

641
00:30:18,349 --> 00:30:19,951
in this concept of physical literacy.

642
00:30:19,951 --> 00:30:20,685
Physical literacy

643
00:30:20,685 --> 00:30:25,390
definition US is ability, confidence
and desire to be active for life.

644
00:30:25,623 --> 00:30:27,458
A lot of sports, it's about it.

645
00:30:27,458 --> 00:30:28,827
It's about skills.

646
00:30:28,827 --> 00:30:31,563
It's about the, ability piece.

647
00:30:31,563 --> 00:30:35,066
But I was always drawn
to the affective pieces of confidence

648
00:30:35,066 --> 00:30:38,503
and motivation or confidence
and desire to want to participate.

649
00:30:38,503 --> 00:30:40,171
Like how do you make that happen?

650
00:30:40,171 --> 00:30:42,540
So it's kind of a catchy name, right?

651
00:30:42,540 --> 00:30:43,908
Pop physical literacy.

652
00:30:43,908 --> 00:30:47,445
People think of them like reading buddies
at school, like walk out.

653
00:30:47,478 --> 00:30:50,481
Maybe your oldest kids go down
and read to the kindergartners.

654
00:30:50,915 --> 00:30:54,219
In this case,
we train the oldest kids in the school.

655
00:30:54,219 --> 00:30:57,689
So in a K-5 school, we
train the fifth graders to be these pops.

656
00:30:58,289 --> 00:31:02,627
We interview them, they sign a contract,
they have to commit to coming.

657
00:31:02,627 --> 00:31:05,730
And what they do is they're there either
sometimes we call them like

658
00:31:05,730 --> 00:31:09,801
the assistant coaches to the to the adult
that's working or like the captains.

659
00:31:10,235 --> 00:31:15,607
And so their jobs are essentially to help
organize the games, welcome the kids

660
00:31:15,707 --> 00:31:19,611
upon arrival, sometimes lead to the top
self social emotional learning piece.

661
00:31:20,078 --> 00:31:23,748
But what happens is once
because a lot of times

662
00:31:23,748 --> 00:31:25,950
kids don't know how to organize themselves
anymore, right?

663
00:31:25,950 --> 00:31:29,254
You get ten kids to say,
okay, split sides and play a game,

664
00:31:29,387 --> 00:31:31,389
and they'll look at you like
you got to head right

665
00:31:31,389 --> 00:31:34,592
because they don't know how to pick teams
or at least do it fairly.

666
00:31:35,026 --> 00:31:38,997
So by giving them these responsibilities,
what's happening is two things.

667
00:31:39,063 --> 00:31:40,632
At recess,

668
00:31:40,632 --> 00:31:43,968
they're going outside and they're
organizing themselves for the first time.

669
00:31:44,469 --> 00:31:47,238
And these stories are crazy.

670
00:31:47,238 --> 00:31:51,609
Teachers are telling us that,
you know, Eric, who's a trained PLP,

671
00:31:52,143 --> 00:31:56,781
see, Steve starting to lose his cool,
who hasn't been in the program?

672
00:31:56,948 --> 00:32:00,818
Eric starts to teach Steve top self,
this is how you come down.

673
00:32:01,019 --> 00:32:02,186
You don't want to fight that kid.

674
00:32:02,186 --> 00:32:04,022
You don't want
to get kicked out of whatever.

675
00:32:04,022 --> 00:32:06,124
And so we're seeing now

676
00:32:06,124 --> 00:32:09,894
like giving these kids
this leadership role, it's a big deal.

677
00:32:09,894 --> 00:32:12,163
It's impacting school culture.

678
00:32:12,163 --> 00:32:15,099
And they're just better citizens
in the school.

679
00:32:15,099 --> 00:32:18,102
You know, nothing works better
than giving a kid a leadership role.

680
00:32:18,603 --> 00:32:19,437
So they love that.

681
00:32:19,437 --> 00:32:23,708
And we don't always give it to those kids
that are like the rock star kids

682
00:32:23,708 --> 00:32:25,710
that are already
getting all the accolades.

683
00:32:25,710 --> 00:32:29,080
Like, what we try to do is
we say to the people that administrators

684
00:32:29,080 --> 00:32:32,483
are the fifth grade team who are those
kids are on the cusp, right?

685
00:32:32,517 --> 00:32:36,888
That, you know, we often say at risk,
but who are who's that promise, right.

686
00:32:36,888 --> 00:32:40,124
Who's that kid that you know that
given the right

687
00:32:40,458 --> 00:32:42,293
leadership, it's going to change.

688
00:32:42,293 --> 00:32:43,661
It's going to change their life.

689
00:32:43,661 --> 00:32:47,532
And it's really like it's it's
a core component of the program's amazing.

690
00:32:47,532 --> 00:32:50,201
You got a lot of good stuff
going on at two for one.

691
00:32:50,201 --> 00:32:54,439
Where can someone reach out to you
if they want to work or apply or.

692
00:32:55,606 --> 00:32:55,940
Yeah.

693
00:32:55,940 --> 00:32:57,375
So have their kid join.

694
00:32:57,375 --> 00:33:00,244
I, myself and Carrie used to,
you know, receive all that.

695
00:33:00,244 --> 00:33:06,250
So, you know, our website is, 241 play.org
when we went from 241 sports

696
00:33:06,818 --> 00:33:12,056
LLC mom and Pop camp to sort of global
nonprofit, we went to 241 care.

697
00:33:12,156 --> 00:33:14,192
But people were getting confused.

698
00:33:14,192 --> 00:33:16,694
So now we say
we put play back into sports.

699
00:33:16,694 --> 00:33:20,631
So our easy to remember 241 play.org.

700
00:33:20,898 --> 00:33:22,000
There's some

701
00:33:22,000 --> 00:33:25,503
you know those questionnaires on there
like if you if you want more info.

702
00:33:25,903 --> 00:33:30,074
Usually we let our camp directors on site
to the hiring of staff for,

703
00:33:30,074 --> 00:33:31,876
for particular sites.

704
00:33:31,876 --> 00:33:33,311
And then when we get grants

705
00:33:33,311 --> 00:33:36,414
and we just open things up,
we send it out to the general population.

706
00:33:37,148 --> 00:33:39,584
Jessica from our team handles,

707
00:33:39,584 --> 00:33:42,453
you know, our staffing
for all of our parent pay camps.

708
00:33:42,453 --> 00:33:43,454
And then, Carrie,

709
00:33:43,454 --> 00:33:47,091
usually we'll do our grant funded programs
in terms of, you know, hiring for that.

710
00:33:47,592 --> 00:33:48,826
Nice. And it's the mailing address.

711
00:33:48,826 --> 00:33:50,428
1424 Park Street.

712
00:33:50,428 --> 00:33:51,129
That's right.

713
00:33:51,129 --> 00:33:53,731
8114.
Yes, you can get that on our website.

714
00:33:53,731 --> 00:33:56,234
So we have an office, office
space down there.

715
00:33:56,234 --> 00:34:00,471
And, you know, it's our headquarters,
right into Hartford.

716
00:34:00,471 --> 00:34:03,174
Address. But, you know, truth be told,
we're programmers.

717
00:34:03,174 --> 00:34:06,177
We're we're
we're not spending much time in an office.

718
00:34:06,177 --> 00:34:08,813
We're out at schools
and in the community all the time.

719
00:34:08,813 --> 00:34:11,349
What do you have for suggestions
on someone that's,

720
00:34:11,349 --> 00:34:13,851
a nonprofit
that's looking to start writing grants

721
00:34:13,851 --> 00:34:16,054
like the Hartford Foundation
for Public Giving?

722
00:34:16,054 --> 00:34:17,555
Do you have a suggestion for I.

723
00:34:17,555 --> 00:34:23,327
Do I you know what drives me crazy
sometimes is how like, guarded

724
00:34:23,327 --> 00:34:27,398
people can be about
not wanting to share our stuff.

725
00:34:27,665 --> 00:34:31,469
We have found that, you know,
you and I are a perfect example.

726
00:34:31,469 --> 00:34:33,771
Like partnering
is where the magic happens, right?

727
00:34:33,771 --> 00:34:37,742
We don't do what you do
and you don't do what we do.

728
00:34:37,775 --> 00:34:41,045
And so it's it's finding those people
that are like

729
00:34:41,045 --> 00:34:42,613
minded that you can collaborate with.

730
00:34:42,613 --> 00:34:46,918
Now, would we struggle to find a grant
we could write for together?

731
00:34:47,218 --> 00:34:48,753
Probably. Right.

732
00:34:48,753 --> 00:34:51,722
But that doesn't mean
I can't share with you.

733
00:34:51,722 --> 00:34:54,592
Like, hey, here's a good grant.
I heard about that. I think you did.

734
00:34:54,592 --> 00:34:57,662
But center for Healing and Justice
three sports, that's a perfect example.

735
00:34:57,662 --> 00:35:01,632
Like there are people that want to compete
with them as opposed to join with them.

736
00:35:01,632 --> 00:35:04,235
It's crazy to me, like we're serving kids.

737
00:35:04,235 --> 00:35:07,138
And so a lot of, grantors

738
00:35:07,138 --> 00:35:10,341
love it
when nonprofits collaborate, right?

739
00:35:10,341 --> 00:35:12,009
Because they know
they're more powerful together

740
00:35:12,009 --> 00:35:13,744
and the dollars
can, can get more spread out.

741
00:35:13,744 --> 00:35:16,781
So that would be my first
piece of advice is to find likeminded,

742
00:35:18,583 --> 00:35:21,586
partners that you can help fill each

743
00:35:21,786 --> 00:35:24,789
fill gaps like we're partners
with Active City, Hartford.

744
00:35:25,590 --> 00:35:27,992
That's been a huge partnership for us.

745
00:35:27,992 --> 00:35:30,995
Some people could see us
as essentially competitors, but

746
00:35:31,195 --> 00:35:32,697
we don't look at things that way.

747
00:35:32,697 --> 00:35:35,233
Like we don't
we're not fighting over kids, right?

748
00:35:35,233 --> 00:35:37,535
If you're doing good work
and we're doing good work,

749
00:35:37,535 --> 00:35:39,003
there's plenty of kids to go around.

750
00:35:39,003 --> 00:35:42,006
And so,
that's the mentality we've always had.

751
00:35:42,006 --> 00:35:43,708
So I'd lead with that.

752
00:35:43,708 --> 00:35:44,108
Thank you.

753
00:35:44,108 --> 00:35:44,876
Yeah.

754
00:35:44,876 --> 00:35:48,579
And speaking of partnership
and collaboration, what happened on May

755
00:35:48,579 --> 00:35:51,449
11th, 2024?

756
00:35:51,449 --> 00:35:52,483
The blue Jean mile.

757
00:35:52,483 --> 00:35:55,419
So, that was our second
annual blue Jean mile.

758
00:35:55,419 --> 00:35:58,422
And so, the story behind that is,

759
00:35:59,524 --> 00:36:03,728
most people in West Hartford
at least know, Stephanie Blowzy, who,

760
00:36:03,961 --> 00:36:09,100
was the owner of Fleet Feet, for, for
many years, she and I shared in common.

761
00:36:10,201 --> 00:36:13,204
Jason Hannigan, who was,

762
00:36:13,671 --> 00:36:17,241
a guy who grew up in town
that everybody love, personal trainer,

763
00:36:17,241 --> 00:36:20,244
but struggled his whole life
with mental health issues.

764
00:36:20,845 --> 00:36:24,248
We were both, friends with Mary Painter,
his wife.

765
00:36:24,248 --> 00:36:28,119
And, Jason used to play basketball
with me, and,

766
00:36:28,853 --> 00:36:31,856
you know, I can't say, like,
we were, like, the best of friends, but,

767
00:36:32,223 --> 00:36:36,060
you know, he's one of those guys that once
you met him, you were his guy, right?

768
00:36:36,060 --> 00:36:36,827
No matter what.

769
00:36:36,827 --> 00:36:41,399
So I took him in the Whole Foods, and
I get your newsletters about two for one.

770
00:36:41,399 --> 00:36:42,466
I love what you're doing.

771
00:36:42,466 --> 00:36:44,902
I always, you know,
I'm always pumped about it.

772
00:36:44,902 --> 00:36:48,506
Well, sadly,
he died by suicide shortly after Covid.

773
00:36:48,639 --> 00:36:54,378
And, for those who knew him well, it was
devastating, but not a shock, right?

774
00:36:54,378 --> 00:36:56,113
Because they knew what his struggles were

775
00:36:57,415 --> 00:36:58,049
and because we

776
00:36:58,049 --> 00:37:01,652
were doing so much work
around, around mental health.

777
00:37:01,819 --> 00:37:05,323
But really our,
our we're in the prevention space, right?

778
00:37:05,323 --> 00:37:06,891
We're not in the intervention space.

779
00:37:06,891 --> 00:37:09,093
And what I mean by
that is the work we do with top

780
00:37:09,093 --> 00:37:13,097
self is to get kids
to never get to that point, right.

781
00:37:13,097 --> 00:37:16,968
That they have strategies
to either ask for help or to self-regulate

782
00:37:16,968 --> 00:37:20,838
to a point where they would never
get to that, you know, situation.

783
00:37:21,572 --> 00:37:25,876
And so, Stephanie
and I, Stephanie said, you know what?

784
00:37:26,077 --> 00:37:29,213
This guy Johnny Gregoire,
lost his brother to suicide with?

785
00:37:29,247 --> 00:37:31,682
Johnny Cork is a world class runner.

786
00:37:31,682 --> 00:37:34,452
And what he did remember his brother,
he came up with this idea,

787
00:37:34,452 --> 00:37:36,254
the blue Jean mile.

788
00:37:36,254 --> 00:37:39,123
And so what it is,
is you run a mile in blue jeans.

789
00:37:39,123 --> 00:37:42,260
And the reason he chose that is he said
that was the closest equivalent

790
00:37:42,260 --> 00:37:45,730
he could get to describing his brother's
pain.

791
00:37:46,097 --> 00:37:46,464
Right?

792
00:37:46,464 --> 00:37:50,568
That his mental health
pain was like trying to run a mile in blue

793
00:37:50,568 --> 00:37:54,038
jeans, just the,
you know, just sweating in your,

794
00:37:54,038 --> 00:37:57,041
you know, like scratching you
in the hole, like, why would you do it?

795
00:37:57,275 --> 00:38:00,244
But until you've experienced
something like that, you know,

796
00:38:00,244 --> 00:38:04,382
I as a lifelong anxiety sufferer, it's
hard to tell people what it feels like.

797
00:38:04,382 --> 00:38:05,216
Right?

798
00:38:05,216 --> 00:38:09,420
And so we heard about this and we thought,
I wouldn't that we should do a local

799
00:38:09,420 --> 00:38:12,423
blue jean mile and we we approached Mary,

800
00:38:12,657 --> 00:38:16,027
Jason's wife, and, she jumped on board.

801
00:38:16,027 --> 00:38:19,196
And, the first year we raised $10,000

802
00:38:19,930 --> 00:38:23,634
and it was just it was a really good
feeling community event.

803
00:38:23,634 --> 00:38:25,870
It was a great place
for everybody to come together.

804
00:38:25,870 --> 00:38:27,438
And then the next year
we tried to grow it.

805
00:38:27,438 --> 00:38:31,342
And that's when we reconnected
with our friend at friend Tiffany

806
00:38:31,342 --> 00:38:35,012
and, as soon as you all heard about it,
you jumped right on board.

807
00:38:35,446 --> 00:38:38,049
You guys came. You set up a photo booth.

808
00:38:38,049 --> 00:38:42,286
You got a chance to, welcome, the group
that was there.

809
00:38:42,286 --> 00:38:44,388
Let them know about your mission.

810
00:38:44,388 --> 00:38:47,725
And I remember being so impressed
with how well you articulate

811
00:38:47,725 --> 00:38:48,793
what your mission is like.

812
00:38:48,793 --> 00:38:49,493
You just.

813
00:38:49,493 --> 00:38:53,497
It it flows, and it's clearly so
natural and again,

814
00:38:53,497 --> 00:38:58,102
I think that's a perfect example of like,
yeah, we can find ways to partner.

815
00:38:58,102 --> 00:38:58,436
Right.

816
00:38:58,436 --> 00:39:02,406
We and there's going to be opportunities
I know that are going to happen

817
00:39:02,406 --> 00:39:05,810
as a result of the work
we're doing in parallel with each other.

818
00:39:06,177 --> 00:39:07,111
Know I'm here.

819
00:39:07,111 --> 00:39:09,447
I wanted to thank you for that opportunity

820
00:39:09,447 --> 00:39:11,415
because I still see people
and they're like,

821
00:39:11,415 --> 00:39:13,417
oh yeah, we remember you from the blue
Jean.

822
00:39:13,417 --> 00:39:14,585
Yeah, yeah.

823
00:39:14,585 --> 00:39:16,220
And we have a photo booth pic.

824
00:39:16,220 --> 00:39:18,122
So we took one as a group.

825
00:39:19,256 --> 00:39:22,259
Stephanie is going to put it up here,
but yeah, we had the.

826
00:39:22,593 --> 00:39:23,361
Oh that's. Right.

827
00:39:23,361 --> 00:39:25,863
Yeah, we had a little photo booth.
Both logos are on there.

828
00:39:25,863 --> 00:39:27,131
Yeah yeah yeah.

829
00:39:27,131 --> 00:39:31,836
We raised we raised $15,000 that day
and that and the money went directly to,

830
00:39:32,236 --> 00:39:36,006
us being able to do a season
and a half at West Middle School

831
00:39:36,006 --> 00:39:39,176
and the Asylum
Hill, neighborhood of, of Hartford.

832
00:39:40,144 --> 00:39:42,213
And a lot of the, the donors

833
00:39:42,213 --> 00:39:45,416
from that, came over and saw the program
and they were so impressed.

834
00:39:45,616 --> 00:39:49,120
So we're actually in a move that event,
this spring to Bushnell Park.

835
00:39:50,187 --> 00:39:54,492
We had thought we had to have a track,
but no one's going to run a 406 mile.

836
00:39:54,492 --> 00:39:57,161
We don't think so. We're not worried
about the unofficial market over.

837
00:39:57,161 --> 00:40:00,264
Yeah, no, what we'll do
is because most people walk it, probably.

838
00:40:00,531 --> 00:40:02,733
I think about 85% of the people
did it last year.

839
00:40:02,733 --> 00:40:05,703
Walk the mile, which is great.

840
00:40:05,703 --> 00:40:08,672
And then,
then we have like two heat to have, like,

841
00:40:08,739 --> 00:40:10,174
I want to run it for time heat.

842
00:40:10,174 --> 00:40:14,545
And then we have like an elite heat and,
but we think it'll be a good spot to do it

843
00:40:14,545 --> 00:40:18,883
this year because we run, free programing
at Bushnell Park in the evenings.

844
00:40:19,049 --> 00:40:21,919
One of them is a run club,
and so we're going to have all the kids

845
00:40:21,919 --> 00:40:23,954
in the run club participate in it.

846
00:40:23,954 --> 00:40:26,857
We'll, hopefully you guys can come back
and set up a booth and, you.

847
00:40:26,857 --> 00:40:27,792
Know, the date.

848
00:40:27,792 --> 00:40:30,861
We don't have, we haven't secured it yet
because we got to sort it out with,

849
00:40:31,562 --> 00:40:34,565
the city of Hartford,
plus the Bushnell, Park Foundation,

850
00:40:34,565 --> 00:40:36,200
who have been wonderful partners of ours.

851
00:40:36,200 --> 00:40:40,337
But, and we also want to look at things
like, legislative sessions,

852
00:40:40,337 --> 00:40:42,807
what's going on at UConn,
you know, like things like that,

853
00:40:42,807 --> 00:40:46,310
because we don't want to pick a date
that is, we think we think

854
00:40:46,310 --> 00:40:50,181
the last Thursday in April, but,
which is the 24th, I believe.

855
00:40:50,181 --> 00:40:52,216
But we'll we'll make sure that doesn't.

856
00:40:52,216 --> 00:40:53,484
Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah.

857
00:40:53,484 --> 00:40:56,287
Like you said, that partnership
and collaboration is powerful.

858
00:40:56,287 --> 00:40:57,721
And it goes a long way when

859
00:40:58,689 --> 00:40:59,590
people come together.

860
00:40:59,590 --> 00:41:00,424
So yeah.

861
00:41:00,424 --> 00:41:03,427
And thank you for being a good friend
and inviting us.

862
00:41:04,061 --> 00:41:04,829
Thank you for everything.

863
00:41:04,829 --> 00:41:06,697
Yeah. You're doing great things. What?

864
00:41:06,697 --> 00:41:09,700
How do you feel for exercise?

865
00:41:09,900 --> 00:41:11,368
Helping mental health.

866
00:41:11,368 --> 00:41:11,969
Oh, my God.

867
00:41:11,969 --> 00:41:15,773
You know, it's interesting because,
you know, I shared my own stuff, struggle

868
00:41:15,773 --> 00:41:20,644
with anxiety and,
you know, I, I grew up playing everything

869
00:41:20,644 --> 00:41:24,148
and even into my young adult life,
I was training for marathons,

870
00:41:24,782 --> 00:41:27,284
and, I,

871
00:41:27,284 --> 00:41:29,553
just before the time
I was telling you about

872
00:41:29,553 --> 00:41:32,790
when, I did the CPR
and I started to have my own panic.

873
00:41:32,790 --> 00:41:36,527
I had gotten a little bit injured,
and so I went from exercising

874
00:41:36,694 --> 00:41:39,663
probably an hour
and a half to two hours a day

875
00:41:39,663 --> 00:41:42,032
to maybe 3 or 4 times a week

876
00:41:42,032 --> 00:41:45,402
for 45 minutes or so,
because I'd gotten some severe knee pain.

877
00:41:45,402 --> 00:41:46,670
I put on a few pounds.

878
00:41:46,670 --> 00:41:49,673
I my schedule was just not what it was.

879
00:41:50,040 --> 00:41:54,411
And so I think what happened
was I had spent my whole life

880
00:41:54,411 --> 00:41:58,315
having exercise, manage my mental health.

881
00:41:58,883 --> 00:42:01,886
And then when I stopped exercising,
I didn't know that.

882
00:42:02,019 --> 00:42:06,690
And so that's when all of a sudden
I'd be having these episodes of

883
00:42:06,991 --> 00:42:08,859
and sometimes it was sadness
to watch like,

884
00:42:08,859 --> 00:42:10,694
and I didn't know where it was coming
from.

885
00:42:10,694 --> 00:42:14,331
And it's interesting because as someone
who went through the process.

886
00:42:14,732 --> 00:42:19,904
So SSRI eyes are the drugs
that people get typically for depression

887
00:42:19,937 --> 00:42:23,340
or for anxiety
when they give the same drug for a reason.

888
00:42:24,074 --> 00:42:27,511
People know me as Lexapro or Zoloft,
so those are sort of the more common

889
00:42:27,511 --> 00:42:31,115
names were basically
what the way was described to me is that

890
00:42:32,182 --> 00:42:35,252
your brain should is here ideally right.

891
00:42:35,553 --> 00:42:39,523
When you're anxious, you're you're up here
when you're depressed, you're down here.

892
00:42:40,691 --> 00:42:43,494
What the drug does, is it takes the

893
00:42:43,494 --> 00:42:47,665
it takes the anxious and brings it down,
and it takes the depression, brings it up.

894
00:42:48,165 --> 00:42:48,832
But you know what?

895
00:42:48,832 --> 00:42:51,835
Exercise does the exact same thing.

896
00:42:52,336 --> 00:42:52,870
Right.

897
00:42:52,870 --> 00:42:58,609
And so and and for me to have learned
that was super powerful with my recovery

898
00:42:58,609 --> 00:43:00,244
because then I sort of knew like

899
00:43:00,244 --> 00:43:02,613
it was just brain chemistry
that was messing with me.

900
00:43:02,613 --> 00:43:05,583
So when I had to do the CBT stuff,
I could tell myself that

901
00:43:05,683 --> 00:43:08,385
that's just your anxiety talking,
that's just your sadness talking.

902
00:43:08,385 --> 00:43:08,619
Right.

903
00:43:08,619 --> 00:43:12,089
So and then I,
I that's why everybody says like

904
00:43:12,489 --> 00:43:14,658
it's putting the shoes on
is the hardest part.

905
00:43:14,658 --> 00:43:17,661
Once you actually do the exercise,
everyone's like,

906
00:43:17,695 --> 00:43:21,765
I mean it was hard, but you're you're glad
you did it in most in most cases.

907
00:43:22,232 --> 00:43:24,201
But I'll tell you, even as a counselor,

908
00:43:25,235 --> 00:43:26,303
I when I first

909
00:43:26,303 --> 00:43:30,808
started in West Hartford,
it would be the random 10th or 11th grader

910
00:43:30,808 --> 00:43:34,244
who was on medication
for different things.

911
00:43:34,945 --> 00:43:39,049
And then, 2008,
which was the start of this.

912
00:43:39,617 --> 00:43:40,651
Right?

913
00:43:40,651 --> 00:43:43,654
It started to creep down into freshman
year.

914
00:43:43,754 --> 00:43:47,024
Then middle school,
and then even elementary school kids

915
00:43:47,324 --> 00:43:50,728
that are being put on medication
because they're not moving as much.

916
00:43:50,728 --> 00:43:54,231
They're just not they're not regulating
their body with exercise.

917
00:43:54,231 --> 00:43:57,267
And look, I don't I'm
not sitting here to be an be an expert.

918
00:43:57,468 --> 00:44:00,804
A lot of it is just done on my own
personal experience, my own research.

919
00:44:01,038 --> 00:44:04,875
But exercise is the best medicine for
for mental health.

920
00:44:05,042 --> 00:44:07,144
And when I say exercise, let people hear.

921
00:44:07,144 --> 00:44:07,945
I push ups.

922
00:44:07,945 --> 00:44:10,247
And, you know,
you know, like calisthenics.

923
00:44:10,247 --> 00:44:11,982
I mean, play like, I mean,

924
00:44:11,982 --> 00:44:15,686
because the other thing about it
is, is that it's belongingness.

925
00:44:15,686 --> 00:44:17,988
Like when you play,
you're with other people,

926
00:44:17,988 --> 00:44:19,957
you're making social connections, right?

927
00:44:19,957 --> 00:44:22,960
You're learning
how to belong to something.

928
00:44:23,193 --> 00:44:26,630
You're learning empathy,
you're learning social skills

929
00:44:26,630 --> 00:44:29,633
and if you're if you're on your device,
you're not.

930
00:44:29,867 --> 00:44:32,002
How to be a good winner,
how to be a loser 100.

931
00:44:32,002 --> 00:44:35,005
Percent.
Yeah. Social media and phones, man.

932
00:44:35,172 --> 00:44:36,940
That's a
that's a whole podcast for another day.

933
00:44:36,940 --> 00:44:40,110
Yeah. No exercise.
I cosign that personally.

934
00:44:40,411 --> 00:44:43,681
I find that, you know, this Saturday
I was feeling lethargic.

935
00:44:43,681 --> 00:44:44,982
Down and out.

936
00:44:44,982 --> 00:44:46,083
Let's go for a run. Yeah.

937
00:44:46,083 --> 00:44:46,650
Get the dog.

938
00:44:46,650 --> 00:44:48,152
Go for a run

939
00:44:48,152 --> 00:44:52,189
or you know, let's just do ten squats,
ten pushups, get that blood flowing.

940
00:44:52,423 --> 00:44:56,460
And it's hard because unless you sort of
have experienced the positive outcome,

941
00:44:56,727 --> 00:44:59,830
if you're feeling lethargic,
sometimes you just want to go deeper

942
00:44:59,830 --> 00:45:00,998
into the lethargy. Right.

943
00:45:00,998 --> 00:45:06,303
And so you have to be able to help kids
experience the power of of that

944
00:45:06,303 --> 00:45:09,306
and be really intentional
about helping them to recognize

945
00:45:09,373 --> 00:45:12,376
how good playing and moving
makes them feel.

946
00:45:12,543 --> 00:45:14,878
Joy. Dancing is great. Dancing.
Yeah, yeah.

947
00:45:14,878 --> 00:45:16,246
Listen, you're talking to a dancer, I.

948
00:45:16,246 --> 00:45:17,881
Believe me, I know you just don't.

949
00:45:17,881 --> 00:45:19,550
You don't think I brought that up
intentionally?

950
00:45:19,550 --> 00:45:20,250
Thank you for that.

951
00:45:20,250 --> 00:45:23,520
We shared last podcast
with whole videos out there on 123.

952
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:27,224
If you want to see the award
winning dancing performance.

953
00:45:27,958 --> 00:45:29,126
Very.

954
00:45:29,126 --> 00:45:31,895
Easily, Robert Rivera my,

955
00:45:31,895 --> 00:45:34,998
my my co partner from, Juniper Homes.

956
00:45:34,998 --> 00:45:38,702
I meant to say juniper, but, Kerry,
Kerry and I love to dance.

957
00:45:38,702 --> 00:45:43,741
And so, we, in fact,
I purchased some ballroom dance stuff

958
00:45:43,741 --> 00:45:47,411
from Playhouse on Parks auction that have
still been sitting there because,

959
00:45:47,544 --> 00:45:50,380
you know, when you get these auction
items, you're like, oh, got it.

960
00:45:50,380 --> 00:45:51,281
This is be so fun.

961
00:45:51,281 --> 00:45:51,849
This will be cool.

962
00:45:51,849 --> 00:45:54,551
So you've now prompted me
that I got to follow up with them?

963
00:45:54,551 --> 00:45:55,052
Yeah, I.

964
00:45:55,052 --> 00:45:57,755
That motivated me
to sign up with my wife too,

965
00:45:57,755 --> 00:46:00,124
because it was like something
to do with your loved one.

966
00:46:00,124 --> 00:46:02,092
Yeah. You're in touch.

967
00:46:02,092 --> 00:46:03,494
You're learning something new.

968
00:46:03,494 --> 00:46:04,628
You're vulnerable.

969
00:46:04,628 --> 00:46:06,630
I loved it, I. Mean,
it's like built in date night.

970
00:46:06,630 --> 00:46:07,865
Yeah, yeah, built in date night.

971
00:46:07,865 --> 00:46:09,867
And it's, like, scheduled.
You have to go. Yeah.

972
00:46:09,867 --> 00:46:11,301
You're you're going to do it. You make it.

973
00:46:11,301 --> 00:46:12,903
Make time for it.

974
00:46:12,903 --> 00:46:16,640
But yeah, Nicole and I have done it
once before it Arthur Murray

975
00:46:17,174 --> 00:46:18,108
and we're going back.

976
00:46:18,108 --> 00:46:20,911
Yeah, we've we've offered dance
at a number of our programs

977
00:46:20,911 --> 00:46:23,514
because, you know, at the end of the day,
that's a sport to meet you like.

978
00:46:23,514 --> 00:46:24,047
Yeah, that's great.

979
00:46:24,047 --> 00:46:28,452
So my two sisters run the largest Irish
dance school in all of Washington, D.C.

980
00:46:28,452 --> 00:46:30,087
area, Boyle School of Irish Dance.

981
00:46:30,087 --> 00:46:33,357
You can look it up and, you know, it's
a little bit cultural, right?

982
00:46:33,390 --> 00:46:36,093
Growing up, Irish immigrants,

983
00:46:37,461 --> 00:46:40,264
the girls
danced and the boys played sports.

984
00:46:40,264 --> 00:46:41,732
But I loved the dance.

985
00:46:41,732 --> 00:46:45,602
In fact, I was decent at Irish dancing
until my brothers just made fun of me

986
00:46:45,602 --> 00:46:46,970
for being in a kilt. Like, literally.

987
00:46:46,970 --> 00:46:48,605
That's how it was when we grew up.

988
00:46:48,605 --> 00:46:51,708
And I, you know, I look back at it now
and I really wish I still had

989
00:46:51,708 --> 00:46:52,776
that as something that I did.

990
00:46:52,776 --> 00:46:56,046
But my sisters are great athletes,
like my Irish dance.

991
00:46:56,046 --> 00:46:58,682
It's tough. Right? Calves are oh my god.

992
00:46:58,682 --> 00:46:59,516
Yeah. Just yeah.

993
00:46:59,516 --> 00:47:00,918
And I like how their upper body.

994
00:47:00,918 --> 00:47:01,552
Oh yeah yeah.

995
00:47:01,552 --> 00:47:02,953
It stays tight. Yeah.

996
00:47:02,953 --> 00:47:05,389
You know why the arms stay down there.

997
00:47:05,389 --> 00:47:07,691
Because I guess they danced in bars
and they were tight.

998
00:47:07,691 --> 00:47:12,396
It was a small area, so even you couldn't
wave your hands around or in pubs.

999
00:47:12,729 --> 00:47:14,298
I think you're just. You hurt.

1000
00:47:14,298 --> 00:47:16,567
You read that on the internet.

1001
00:47:16,567 --> 00:47:19,203
Abraham Lincoln told me was on
the internet is true.

1002
00:47:19,203 --> 00:47:22,639
And speaking of which,
Irish night at the town hall.

1003
00:47:22,973 --> 00:47:23,640
Are you going to come?

1004
00:47:23,640 --> 00:47:26,610
I am, that's the 24th.

1005
00:47:26,844 --> 00:47:27,845
Yeah, it's coming up. Right.

1006
00:47:27,845 --> 00:47:30,681
I already have a table, I don't. Oh,
you want to see what? Our table.

1007
00:47:30,681 --> 00:47:32,583
I would love to sit at your table. Right.
All right. Yeah.

1008
00:47:32,583 --> 00:47:34,651
The Boyle's. In the. Holstein here.
All right.

1009
00:47:34,651 --> 00:47:36,286
I was, I was too.

1010
00:47:36,286 --> 00:47:39,122
I was on a reality ten years ago.

1011
00:47:40,924 --> 00:47:42,726
It was
a long time, but it was really nice.

1012
00:47:42,726 --> 00:47:44,695
My mom and dad came.

1013
00:47:44,695 --> 00:47:46,930
My brother from Mexico surprised me.

1014
00:47:46,930 --> 00:47:47,831
It was really cool.

1015
00:47:47,831 --> 00:47:50,701
Yeah, I think it was around 2014
or somewhere else.

1016
00:47:50,701 --> 00:47:52,703
The brother and Mexico rank of the eight.

1017
00:47:52,703 --> 00:47:54,805
He's the youngest middle child.

1018
00:47:54,805 --> 00:47:57,207
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
You threatened them to come.

1019
00:47:57,207 --> 00:47:59,009
You know, Carrie surprised me.

1020
00:47:59,009 --> 00:48:00,177
I didn't know anybody was coming.

1021
00:48:00,177 --> 00:48:00,577
Yeah.

1022
00:48:00,577 --> 00:48:03,580
And, everybody showed up at the bar, and,

1023
00:48:03,780 --> 00:48:05,515
and we walked over to town
hall from there.

1024
00:48:05,515 --> 00:48:06,416
Yeah. Nice.

1025
00:48:06,416 --> 00:48:06,750
All right. Yeah.

1026
00:48:06,750 --> 00:48:07,651
Join us.

1027
00:48:07,651 --> 00:48:09,353
We'll have a, That's awesome for.

1028
00:48:09,353 --> 00:48:10,287
You. That's this weekend, right?

1029
00:48:10,287 --> 00:48:11,855
It's the 25th.

1030
00:48:11,855 --> 00:48:14,658
Two weeks. So fall for a cure.

1031
00:48:14,658 --> 00:48:17,160
Are the honorees this time okay? Reynolds.

1032
00:48:17,160 --> 00:48:20,264
Yeah. Jameson and a couple other people.

1033
00:48:21,765 --> 00:48:23,934
But, yeah, I was an honorary once, too,
so that was awesome.

1034
00:48:23,934 --> 00:48:25,369
A couple years ago.

1035
00:48:25,369 --> 00:48:27,471
Honored and proud of my Irish heritage.

1036
00:48:27,471 --> 00:48:29,172
You still got your shillelagh?
You still got.

1037
00:48:29,172 --> 00:48:30,674
No, I didn't give me a shillelagh.

1038
00:48:30,674 --> 00:48:33,377
I got a, Yeah, yeah, okay.

1039
00:48:33,377 --> 00:48:34,544
I think I think you did.

1040
00:48:34,544 --> 00:48:36,179
I heard that back in the day.

1041
00:48:36,179 --> 00:48:38,749
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm
going to call I'm going to talk to John.

1042
00:48:38,749 --> 00:48:42,486
So I'm, I'm actually during Covid, I,
I became a member of the European Union.

1043
00:48:42,486 --> 00:48:43,854
I got my Irish passport.

1044
00:48:43,854 --> 00:48:44,855
See. Yeah.

1045
00:48:44,855 --> 00:48:47,925
And that's been on my things to do list
forever.

1046
00:48:47,925 --> 00:48:48,191
Yeah.

1047
00:48:48,191 --> 00:48:50,794
My grandfather was born in Waterford,
Ireland.

1048
00:48:50,794 --> 00:48:52,262
I have his death certificate.

1049
00:48:52,262 --> 00:48:53,196
Birth certificate?

1050
00:48:53,196 --> 00:48:55,265
Everything. Yeah, I just been.

1051
00:48:55,265 --> 00:48:57,601
You just got to do all those things.
I just kind of getting it off.

1052
00:48:57,601 --> 00:48:58,502
In. Years now.

1053
00:48:58,502 --> 00:49:00,904
To what extent I'll use it.
I mean, we travel a fair bit.

1054
00:49:00,904 --> 00:49:03,206
So, you know, if, God forbid, I,
you know, got hurt,

1055
00:49:03,206 --> 00:49:04,875
I think that would be the one
good thing is, like,

1056
00:49:04,875 --> 00:49:05,943
you know, I could get the health care

1057
00:49:05,943 --> 00:49:09,846
when I'm over there, but, but it's just
it makes me feel proud to have it both.

1058
00:49:09,846 --> 00:49:11,448
Like, my mom and dad were both born there.

1059
00:49:11,448 --> 00:49:13,717
So nice. Yeah. I'm first generation.
Yeah, that's.

1060
00:49:13,717 --> 00:49:14,885
The main reason I wanted it.

1061
00:49:14,885 --> 00:49:17,821
Just for the pride and. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. No.

1062
00:49:17,821 --> 00:49:18,889
It's cool.

1063
00:49:18,889 --> 00:49:20,991
Very cool. Where was your family from?

1064
00:49:20,991 --> 00:49:23,860
So my dad's from County Donegal,
which is in the northwest.

1065
00:49:23,860 --> 00:49:27,364
And a couple counties below that is
Leitrim, which is where my mom's from.

1066
00:49:27,364 --> 00:49:30,033
But how many times
have you been to the motherland?

1067
00:49:30,033 --> 00:49:32,736
Probably ten to both of our daughters.

1068
00:49:34,004 --> 00:49:37,007
I, went to school there, for a semester.

1069
00:49:37,574 --> 00:49:41,411
Sharon went to, University of Dublin
in, in Dublin.

1070
00:49:41,411 --> 00:49:44,414
And then, Michaela
went to University of Galway

1071
00:49:44,414 --> 00:49:47,250
and, yeah, it was,
you know, great study abroad stuff.

1072
00:49:47,250 --> 00:49:49,653
And then, Did they just.

1073
00:49:49,653 --> 00:49:52,622
One semester once? One semester? Yeah.

1074
00:49:52,756 --> 00:49:55,525
And I still have a number of cousins
that live there.

1075
00:49:55,525 --> 00:49:57,828
In fact, my cousin still lives in

1076
00:49:57,828 --> 00:50:01,031
the and works
the farm where my dad was born and raised.

1077
00:50:01,098 --> 00:50:04,034
My my mom was one of 13
and my dad's one of 11.

1078
00:50:04,034 --> 00:50:06,136
I have 77 first cousins.

1079
00:50:06,136 --> 00:50:06,870
Yeah.

1080
00:50:06,870 --> 00:50:09,373
Yeah, my dad's one of eight.

1081
00:50:09,373 --> 00:50:13,243
And, my sister had a pen pal,
which was a cousin when she was little.

1082
00:50:13,243 --> 00:50:15,812
I don't know
if they still continue to write, but

1083
00:50:15,812 --> 00:50:18,482
yeah, I went there once with my wife
before we married.

1084
00:50:18,482 --> 00:50:19,683
Fluent to Dublin.

1085
00:50:19,683 --> 00:50:21,385
Did the horseshoe flew out of Shannon?

1086
00:50:21,385 --> 00:50:22,886
Yeah, yeah. Best time of my life.

1087
00:50:22,886 --> 00:50:25,622
I can't wait to go
back. It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

1088
00:50:25,622 --> 00:50:26,323
So. Yeah.

1089
00:50:26,323 --> 00:50:27,724
All right. Cool. 25th.

1090
00:50:27,724 --> 00:50:29,893
All right. Any other upcoming events?

1091
00:50:29,893 --> 00:50:30,360
You're so.

1092
00:50:30,360 --> 00:50:32,496
You're Bushnell. It's
kind of like your home base.

1093
00:50:32,496 --> 00:50:35,098
Well, we've got winter carnival coming
up. Yeah, we've got that.

1094
00:50:35,098 --> 00:50:37,501
And so Winter Carnival is one
we came up with last year.

1095
00:50:37,501 --> 00:50:39,169
Sort of a version of like.

1096
00:50:39,169 --> 00:50:41,405
It just drives me crazy
that I drive around town

1097
00:50:41,405 --> 00:50:43,607
and there's nobody ever outside playing
like I love.

1098
00:50:43,607 --> 00:50:46,977
I grew up in upstate New York and I loved
playing football in the winter,

1099
00:50:46,977 --> 00:50:47,544
you know what I mean?

1100
00:50:47,544 --> 00:50:50,013
Just like, you know, tackle
with my brothers or whatever,

1101
00:50:50,013 --> 00:50:52,249
just going sledding
and we would play soccer.

1102
00:50:52,249 --> 00:50:55,852
We'd play anything, you know, I'd scrape
the driveway and shoot hoops and,

1103
00:50:56,787 --> 00:50:59,523
so really what we were trying to do
is to help kids understand, like,

1104
00:50:59,523 --> 00:51:02,993
you're not going to die like you playing
outside is actually good for you, right?

1105
00:51:02,993 --> 00:51:05,762
Yeah. Build your immune system,
get your heart rate going.

1106
00:51:05,762 --> 00:51:08,598
So just for an hour,
we just essentially do what we do an hour

1107
00:51:08,598 --> 00:51:10,934
before an after school program.
We do on the.

1108
00:51:10,934 --> 00:51:12,469
And it was awesome. Last year.

1109
00:51:12,469 --> 00:51:14,571
So Mayor Brown
indicated was in the program.

1110
00:51:14,571 --> 00:51:16,106
He lived right across the street.

1111
00:51:17,274 --> 00:51:19,776
We just basically we play

1112
00:51:19,776 --> 00:51:23,313
team handball, we play touch football,
we play a version of baseball.

1113
00:51:23,613 --> 00:51:27,217
And last year it was it was golden because
it snowed on the first day we did it.

1114
00:51:27,818 --> 00:51:30,120
And a lot of times it's like,
oh, snow, we got to cancel.

1115
00:51:30,120 --> 00:51:31,822
We're like, no, we're not cancel it.

1116
00:51:31,822 --> 00:51:33,790
Like,
you know, I was safe enough for people.

1117
00:51:33,790 --> 00:51:34,491
You know, it's a choice.

1118
00:51:34,491 --> 00:51:36,793
We tell them, like basically, you know,

1119
00:51:36,793 --> 00:51:40,363
we're not anything to, like,
tell you not to or to tell you to.

1120
00:51:40,464 --> 00:51:41,398
We're going to be there.

1121
00:51:41,398 --> 00:51:43,500
If you can get there safely,
then come on over.

1122
00:51:43,500 --> 00:51:44,434
And a lot of kids walked.

1123
00:51:44,434 --> 00:51:47,904
So, yeah, it's outdoor program
we call Winter Carnival

1124
00:51:47,904 --> 00:51:50,941
because we want it to sound fun,
but we also want people to know

1125
00:51:50,941 --> 00:51:52,142
it's going to be outside.

1126
00:51:52,142 --> 00:51:54,611
We got we got some funding from Dick's
Sporting Goods.

1127
00:51:54,611 --> 00:51:59,382
So if kids don't have gloves or hats,
they just send us a discreet

1128
00:51:59,382 --> 00:52:02,986
email, tell us what size, and we show up
with gloves and hats for kids.

1129
00:52:03,420 --> 00:52:04,754
So cool. Yeah.

1130
00:52:04,754 --> 00:52:08,992
So we, I mean, it's our it's our, like,
park home base because

1131
00:52:08,992 --> 00:52:13,063
we've, we have just found it a good spot
for us to do very general things we do.

1132
00:52:13,063 --> 00:52:16,066
Like we have a partnership
with USA fencing.

1133
00:52:16,133 --> 00:52:20,070
We, we have a way to teach fencing at 2%
of the cost of traditional fencing.

1134
00:52:20,570 --> 00:52:21,571
We do that there.

1135
00:52:22,672 --> 00:52:24,741
Once a week, in the, in the winter.

1136
00:52:24,741 --> 00:52:27,744
And I'm sorry, in the fall, in the spring.

1137
00:52:27,777 --> 00:52:29,779
Yeah. So we're in, it's just.

1138
00:52:29,779 --> 00:52:31,481
And then usually the foundation

1139
00:52:31,481 --> 00:52:34,484
will come and open the carousel
on the last night of our event,

1140
00:52:34,551 --> 00:52:36,953
and let kids have free carousel rides,
which is cool, too.

1141
00:52:36,953 --> 00:52:39,956
Can't beat it. Yeah. Winter
carnival. Yeah.

1142
00:52:40,056 --> 00:52:40,790
So cool. Yeah.

1143
00:52:40,790 --> 00:52:43,026
Well, a couple other upcoming events.

1144
00:52:43,026 --> 00:52:45,395
Do you have any other upcoming events?

1145
00:52:45,395 --> 00:52:48,932
We have so much going on right now
that, you know, when you say event.

1146
00:52:50,033 --> 00:52:52,769
We, we had,

1147
00:52:52,769 --> 00:52:55,505
August 29th, you know what day that is?

1148
00:52:55,505 --> 00:52:58,308
It's the 241st day of the calendar year.

1149
00:52:58,308 --> 00:52:59,042
So okay,

1150
00:52:59,042 --> 00:53:02,812
so we got it declared National Sports
Sampling Day by the National Day calendar.

1151
00:53:02,812 --> 00:53:06,583
So we are looking to make that
an annual event as a as our

1152
00:53:06,616 --> 00:53:09,819
you know how people got giving Tuesday
and you've got you know blue Jean mile.

1153
00:53:10,120 --> 00:53:14,024
But we want to make our that day
be our annual giving day.

1154
00:53:14,024 --> 00:53:17,027
And because it
it is named in our, in our honor.

1155
00:53:17,394 --> 00:53:18,795
So we're going to be thinking about

1156
00:53:18,795 --> 00:53:21,264
what are some things
we can do leading up to that.

1157
00:53:21,264 --> 00:53:23,166
We're really excited
about this partnership

1158
00:53:23,166 --> 00:53:26,636
with fight for children,
which is a DC based organization

1159
00:53:26,636 --> 00:53:30,807
that sort of oversees
all, youth sports in Washington, DC.

1160
00:53:31,107 --> 00:53:35,178
We just partnered with Boston Afterschool
and Beyond, which is a similar cohort

1161
00:53:35,178 --> 00:53:38,882
of outside of school time programing
that partners with Boston Public Schools.

1162
00:53:40,650 --> 00:53:43,620
We met today with Achievement First
in Hartford.

1163
00:53:43,720 --> 00:53:46,823
Hoffman Auto Group
has committed a large amount of fund

1164
00:53:46,823 --> 00:53:49,826
to help us start
new programing in East Hartford.

1165
00:53:50,227 --> 00:53:51,361
And in Hartford.

1166
00:53:51,361 --> 00:53:53,563
And one of them is a music and movement
program.

1167
00:53:53,563 --> 00:53:57,300
So, we are we're we're looking to,

1168
00:53:57,968 --> 00:54:00,971
combine our top shelf sports

1169
00:54:01,137 --> 00:54:04,774
with, music sampling
program at Achievement First in Hartford.

1170
00:54:04,774 --> 00:54:09,980
So, yeah, when I you ask what we got
going on it, it really is a lot.

1171
00:54:09,980 --> 00:54:10,413
Yeah.

1172
00:54:10,413 --> 00:54:11,982
No, it's, it's great you got.

1173
00:54:11,982 --> 00:54:14,818
The three on three in Hartford.
East Hartford.

1174
00:54:14,818 --> 00:54:19,756
No, that actually was a was a, one of the
other recipients of the catalyst grants.

1175
00:54:19,789 --> 00:54:23,093
Low is a different nonprofit
that they got a $5,000 grant.

1176
00:54:23,426 --> 00:54:25,629
There were $69,000 available.

1177
00:54:25,629 --> 00:54:26,796
We got a large chunk of that.

1178
00:54:26,796 --> 00:54:29,232
And then they, you know, it's
based on what we asked for it, you know?

1179
00:54:29,232 --> 00:54:29,799
So, yeah.

1180
00:54:30,867 --> 00:54:31,501
Yeah.

1181
00:54:31,501 --> 00:54:33,670
Yeah. So big.

1182
00:54:33,670 --> 00:54:35,905
Irish night, January 25th.

1183
00:54:35,905 --> 00:54:36,940
Wolfpack game. What?

1184
00:54:36,940 --> 00:54:39,542
Friends of Feeney, February 28th.

1185
00:54:39,542 --> 00:54:41,011
If you're available, come join us.

1186
00:54:41,011 --> 00:54:42,679
I think we are available.

1187
00:54:42,679 --> 00:54:45,482
And Kerry and I have been talking about
wanting to get to a Wolfpack game.

1188
00:54:45,482 --> 00:54:48,451
Oh, we do have a grant
that's out there right now

1189
00:54:48,652 --> 00:54:51,655
through Liberty Bank
that we're pretty confident about.

1190
00:54:51,655 --> 00:54:53,123
You know, you just never know.

1191
00:54:53,123 --> 00:54:55,592
You know how many other people
have asked for grants?

1192
00:54:55,592 --> 00:54:58,561
So one of the things we're looking to do,

1193
00:54:58,695 --> 00:55:01,898
we're going to use that money
to support Grace Academy in Hartford,

1194
00:55:02,732 --> 00:55:06,202
to bring our model
and support their athletics.

1195
00:55:06,202 --> 00:55:11,074
But we want to do a sports sampling day
in May with Hartford Athletics.

1196
00:55:11,074 --> 00:55:13,476
So Hartford Athletic
has been a really good partner of ours,

1197
00:55:13,476 --> 00:55:15,545
and I'm only thinking of it now
because of the Wolfpack.

1198
00:55:15,545 --> 00:55:16,746
You just brought them up. Yeah.

1199
00:55:16,746 --> 00:55:19,749
And that it would be on site,
but we would welcome

1200
00:55:19,916 --> 00:55:21,584
all kids from all of our programs.

1201
00:55:21,584 --> 00:55:26,189
But it would be kind of be hosted by
Hartford Athletic and by, Grace Academy.

1202
00:55:26,356 --> 00:55:29,959
So it'll be it'll be grant pending,
but that'll be sometime in May.

1203
00:55:30,593 --> 00:55:31,628
Very cool.

1204
00:55:31,628 --> 00:55:34,631
Then we have Parkville Market.

1205
00:55:34,698 --> 00:55:36,132
We're going to have a presence there.

1206
00:55:36,132 --> 00:55:36,700
We are the

1207
00:55:36,700 --> 00:55:40,937
Be a Good Friend concert series sponsors
every Saturday there's a band in there.

1208
00:55:41,171 --> 00:55:44,474
We collaborated with the Greater
Hartford Arts and got a grant.

1209
00:55:44,908 --> 00:55:47,711
And then Travis Moody Blues,
my good friend,

1210
00:55:47,711 --> 00:55:50,680
is going to be playing,
so please join us February 22nd.

1211
00:55:50,780 --> 00:55:51,247
Okay.

1212
00:55:51,247 --> 00:55:53,983
And then our golf event September 13th.

1213
00:55:53,983 --> 00:55:58,221
Yes, fourth annual Friends
of Fini golf tournament that dunks.

1214
00:55:58,221 --> 00:55:59,055
Do you golf?

1215
00:55:59,055 --> 00:56:04,861
I, I have been known to try to swing
a club, but, I'm not sure I did this year.

1216
00:56:05,395 --> 00:56:07,764
But I don't slow anybody down.

1217
00:56:07,764 --> 00:56:10,100
But I won't break any records. Yeah.

1218
00:56:10,100 --> 00:56:10,767
You're perfect.

1219
00:56:10,767 --> 00:56:12,902
You're perfect person
we need at our tournaments.

1220
00:56:12,902 --> 00:56:14,771
All right. Great.

1221
00:56:14,771 --> 00:56:15,372
You'll keep.

1222
00:56:15,372 --> 00:56:18,842
Keep me in the loop on those dates, and,
and again, maybe there's a

1223
00:56:18,908 --> 00:56:21,311
there's an opportunity
for a joint fundraiser at some point

1224
00:56:21,311 --> 00:56:24,381
where we would love to collect funds
for each other's works together. So.

1225
00:56:24,681 --> 00:56:26,316
Well, I think you're doing great things.

1226
00:56:26,316 --> 00:56:28,351
I consider you a good friend.

1227
00:56:28,351 --> 00:56:30,720
You know, two for one.

1228
00:56:30,720 --> 00:56:32,822
I've been a teacher for 21 years.

1229
00:56:35,492 --> 00:56:36,326
What minute are we at?

1230
00:56:36,326 --> 00:56:38,194
Stephania?

1231
00:56:38,194 --> 00:56:40,830
You're at 97.

1232
00:56:40,830 --> 00:56:42,999
We're at 97.

1233
00:56:42,999 --> 00:56:45,468
Whoa. 57. 57.

1234
00:56:45,468 --> 00:56:48,138
Like. Well, we've been talking for an hour
and a half hour.

1235
00:56:48,138 --> 00:56:51,141
We're at an hour,
so it's perfect time to drop an exclusive.

1236
00:56:52,742 --> 00:56:54,210
Two for one.

1237
00:56:54,210 --> 00:56:56,346
I'm taking my talents to South Beach.

1238
00:56:56,346 --> 00:56:59,048
Yeah.

1239
00:56:59,048 --> 00:57:00,817
The LeBron James.

1240
00:57:00,817 --> 00:57:02,318
No, I don't know.

1241
00:57:02,318 --> 00:57:03,386
What did you want to share?

1242
00:57:03,386 --> 00:57:05,822
Well, yeah. Well, I mean, I'm
so excited about this.

1243
00:57:05,822 --> 00:57:07,924
Like, I feel like we,
you know, we stepped in it a little bit.

1244
00:57:07,924 --> 00:57:10,860
I know how
how popular you are as a teacher in town.

1245
00:57:10,860 --> 00:57:14,497
How many people know you in town
for the good work you do at French Feeney?

1246
00:57:14,497 --> 00:57:17,000
But also,

1247
00:57:17,000 --> 00:57:19,002
that you've done summer program

1248
00:57:19,002 --> 00:57:22,272
and quality summer programing
at a great camp for many years.

1249
00:57:22,272 --> 00:57:23,540
And so,

1250
00:57:23,540 --> 00:57:27,877
you and I had met almost a decade ago to
talk about two for one for the first time.

1251
00:57:27,877 --> 00:57:30,814
And at that point, I didn't
really have anything for you. Right.

1252
00:57:30,814 --> 00:57:35,852
Because we were still relatively small,
and it was based on revenue

1253
00:57:35,852 --> 00:57:36,753
we were bringing in.

1254
00:57:36,753 --> 00:57:39,155
And so it just never happened.

1255
00:57:39,155 --> 00:57:43,827
Now we're at a in a position where we know
every summer we have so much work

1256
00:57:43,827 --> 00:57:48,298
and we are always looking for quality
educators, quality teacher coaches.

1257
00:57:48,598 --> 00:57:51,301
And so, we're here to announce that,

1258
00:57:51,301 --> 00:57:55,004
Eric's going to be working at least
four weeks for two for one this summer.

1259
00:57:56,039 --> 00:57:56,806
We're not quite

1260
00:57:56,806 --> 00:57:59,976
ready to declare what his role will be.

1261
00:58:00,844 --> 00:58:03,313
Because last year, I would have had

1262
00:58:03,313 --> 00:58:06,649
you be a utility player
at some of our grant funded programs.

1263
00:58:06,649 --> 00:58:09,853
There was a lot of young teacher
coaches, paraprofessionals, behavior

1264
00:58:09,853 --> 00:58:13,089
techs who could use mentorship,
who could use some guidance.

1265
00:58:13,223 --> 00:58:16,960
We probably would have had you support
in some of those programs. But,

1266
00:58:18,428 --> 00:58:22,432
we're committed to having you
as many weeks as you are available.

1267
00:58:22,632 --> 00:58:25,435
We have at least eight weeks of programing
that are going to happen this summer.

1268
00:58:25,435 --> 00:58:29,372
It'll be a combination of parent pay camps
here in West Hartford.

1269
00:58:29,372 --> 00:58:30,740
We have two weeks at Kingswood.

1270
00:58:30,740 --> 00:58:33,076
Actually, we have two weeks
at the University of Saint Joseph's.

1271
00:58:33,076 --> 00:58:34,377
We're really excited about that.

1272
00:58:34,377 --> 00:58:36,379
In August, first time ever.

1273
00:58:36,379 --> 00:58:39,015
We have two weeks in Farmington
at Farmington High School.

1274
00:58:39,015 --> 00:58:40,683
We have two weeks up in Suffield,

1275
00:58:40,683 --> 00:58:44,888
but last year we employed
almost 250 people across our network.

1276
00:58:45,121 --> 00:58:47,357
We we got a giant grant from the State

1277
00:58:47,357 --> 00:58:50,894
Department of Education
to serve 750 kids in the correct system.

1278
00:58:51,094 --> 00:58:52,996
We were in three schools there.

1279
00:58:52,996 --> 00:58:54,831
We've always been
in the New Britain schools

1280
00:58:54,831 --> 00:58:57,166
for the past decade
doing summer programing.

1281
00:58:58,201 --> 00:59:00,770
If this summer's like any other summer,
we're going to need it.

1282
00:59:00,770 --> 00:59:03,039
You know, ten more of you
if you can replicate.

1283
00:59:03,039 --> 00:59:05,441
So, but we're just we're thrilled
to have you on board

1284
00:59:05,441 --> 00:59:08,011
and make the announcement
of where you'll be

1285
00:59:08,011 --> 00:59:10,113
and what you'll be doing
when the time comes.

1286
00:59:10,113 --> 00:59:12,482
I'm honored. I'm excited. I'm motivated.

1287
00:59:12,482 --> 00:59:13,483
So I'm. Really.

1288
00:59:13,483 --> 00:59:15,752
And your daughters
are welcome to work with us as well.

1289
00:59:15,752 --> 00:59:16,719
Nice. Yeah.

1290
00:59:16,719 --> 00:59:18,187
Bring the trouble along. Yeah.

1291
00:59:18,187 --> 00:59:19,689
No, they're excited too. Great.

1292
00:59:19,689 --> 00:59:21,324
So this is great. Yeah.

1293
00:59:21,324 --> 00:59:23,760
No, I remember our meeting. Jeremy. Yes.

1294
00:59:23,760 --> 00:59:24,594
And you were like.

1295
00:59:24,594 --> 00:59:27,497
I was ready to sit and talk
and have coffee.

1296
00:59:27,497 --> 00:59:30,199
You're like, I prefer walking meetings.

1297
00:59:30,199 --> 00:59:32,035
And I was like, I like this guy.

1298
00:59:32,035 --> 00:59:36,406
And we walked all the way down Park
Road, took the left down

1299
00:59:36,873 --> 00:59:38,975
what runs parallel to Park Road
and went all the.

1300
00:59:38,975 --> 00:59:40,076
Way around Boulevard?

1301
00:59:40,076 --> 00:59:41,077
Yeah, Boulevard. Yeah.

1302
00:59:41,077 --> 00:59:43,046
We almost did a full mile. Yeah.

1303
00:59:43,046 --> 00:59:44,948
Talking and chatting and catching up.

1304
00:59:44,948 --> 00:59:46,916
First time I ever met you. And I was like,
that stood out.

1305
00:59:46,916 --> 00:59:50,420
So if I ever meet with anyone, I'm
doing walking meeting.

1306
00:59:50,420 --> 00:59:53,289
It's so funny cuz
my kids would make fun of me there.

1307
00:59:53,289 --> 00:59:54,090
You're like Mr.

1308
00:59:54,090 --> 00:59:56,693
Physical Literacy doing walking meetings
all the time.

1309
00:59:56,693 --> 00:59:57,827
That's stood out forever.

1310
00:59:57,827 --> 00:59:58,227
Yeah.

1311
00:59:58,227 --> 01:00:00,063
And, so I remember that day.

1312
01:00:00,063 --> 01:00:02,632
And, so ten years later, here we are.

1313
01:00:02,632 --> 01:00:05,401
Yeah. I'm excited to join the team.
That's great.

1314
01:00:05,401 --> 01:00:06,536
Really looking forward to it.

1315
01:00:06,536 --> 01:00:08,071
Thank you.
Thank you very much. Yeah. Of course.

1316
01:00:08,071 --> 01:00:08,905
Well. Welcome aboard.

1317
01:00:08,905 --> 01:00:11,240
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah,
we got the two for one.

1318
01:00:11,240 --> 01:00:12,141
Got the.

1319
01:00:12,141 --> 01:00:14,777
Yes. We got all sorts of,
you know, swag for you.

1320
01:00:14,777 --> 01:00:17,013
The United Colors of two for one. Yeah.

1321
01:00:17,013 --> 01:00:20,516
And I will say that I am a competitive guy

1322
01:00:21,050 --> 01:00:26,255
and I see way more be a good friend magnet
than I see two for one Magnus's day.

1323
01:00:26,255 --> 01:00:29,692
But I have each on my car and I would
I would expect

1324
01:00:29,692 --> 01:00:32,695
nothing
less of the of the Feeney vehicles.

1325
01:00:32,762 --> 01:00:34,230
Two honorary swag. Yes.

1326
01:00:34,230 --> 01:00:34,731
All right. Yeah.

1327
01:00:34,731 --> 01:00:35,665
The trade.

1328
01:00:35,665 --> 01:00:37,800
The trade stand. There we go.

1329
01:00:37,800 --> 01:00:39,168
Be a good friend. Thank you.

1330
01:00:40,770 --> 01:00:41,971
And, Yeah.

1331
01:00:41,971 --> 01:00:44,474
So let's
let's get let's get be a good friend.

1332
01:00:44,474 --> 01:00:45,208
Friend to Feeney.

1333
01:00:45,208 --> 01:00:45,842
And two for one.

1334
01:00:45,842 --> 01:00:48,745
Magnets on thousands more cars
this year. Let's do it.

1335
01:00:48,745 --> 01:00:52,081
Yeah. No, your website has quite the swag.

1336
01:00:52,081 --> 01:00:55,451
You know,
you have pillows, bottles, scarves.

1337
01:00:55,618 --> 01:00:57,286
Travis. Matthew polos.

1338
01:00:57,286 --> 01:00:58,321
Come on, that's good stuff.

1339
01:00:58,321 --> 01:00:59,622
Carhartt hats.

1340
01:00:59,622 --> 01:01:01,457
Yeah, yeah, it's hoodie.

1341
01:01:01,457 --> 01:01:03,393
To be honest, no one uses that store.

1342
01:01:03,393 --> 01:01:06,229
We got to you know and it's it's
one of those sort of squat locker

1343
01:01:06,229 --> 01:01:08,564
sort of things
where you go on and they do the logo.

1344
01:01:08,564 --> 01:01:10,700
So yeah. Yeah. So yeah not yeah.

1345
01:01:10,700 --> 01:01:12,869
We don't use it as a fundraiser.
Yeah. No it's good stuff.

1346
01:01:12,869 --> 01:01:16,973
But we've, we've waited we want to try to
because people are like they see it now

1347
01:01:16,973 --> 01:01:18,608
and it's a noticeable brand.

1348
01:01:18,608 --> 01:01:21,077
Can we travel or people like whoa
a cool shirt

1349
01:01:21,077 --> 01:01:22,879
or just they like the tagline, you know?

1350
01:01:22,879 --> 01:01:25,682
And so yeah, thanks. Can't beat it.

1351
01:01:26,783 --> 01:01:27,450
So being

1352
01:01:27,450 --> 01:01:31,220
a teacher 21 years,
my favorite teacher of all time was Mrs.

1353
01:01:31,220 --> 01:01:33,322
Joel, my fifth grade teacher.

1354
01:01:33,322 --> 01:01:35,692
You know, beside my mom,
most important person in my life,

1355
01:01:35,692 --> 01:01:38,361
she kind of motivated me
in the right time.

1356
01:01:38,361 --> 01:01:40,596
My parents were going through a divorce.

1357
01:01:40,596 --> 01:01:41,998
Do you have a favorite teacher?

1358
01:01:41,998 --> 01:01:44,701
I do, in fact, I've reconnected with him.

1359
01:01:44,701 --> 01:01:47,537
You know,
it used to always be one of those things

1360
01:01:47,537 --> 01:01:50,940
where I would have a kid
that would come back,

1361
01:01:50,940 --> 01:01:54,143
or they'd find me on social media
and they'd say something like,

1362
01:01:55,044 --> 01:01:57,847
you might not remember saying this, but

1363
01:01:57,847 --> 01:02:00,516
you said something to me in the hallway
or in your office.

1364
01:02:00,516 --> 01:02:03,152
And that changed my life.

1365
01:02:03,152 --> 01:02:07,924
And I thought I would never know that
unless the kid had the gumption, you know?

1366
01:02:07,924 --> 01:02:11,694
And then I started to think,
like how powerful we are as educators.

1367
01:02:12,195 --> 01:02:15,965
So I reached back out
to, I call him, doctor Kisic.

1368
01:02:15,965 --> 01:02:17,533
Coach Kisic. He's not a doctor.

1369
01:02:17,533 --> 01:02:21,337
And he wasn't even my coach, but he
he was a coach.

1370
01:02:22,205 --> 01:02:24,841
He was my
my English teacher and theology teacher.

1371
01:02:24,841 --> 01:02:26,642
And what was kind of cool was that

1372
01:02:26,642 --> 01:02:29,412
I didn't know if I was in English class
or if I was in theology class.

1373
01:02:29,412 --> 01:02:33,082
So he just he was a Vietnam vet and

1374
01:02:33,082 --> 01:02:36,352
he he just had a way.

1375
01:02:37,487 --> 01:02:40,490
He was sort of like, the guy from,

1376
01:02:41,991 --> 01:02:44,994
got Robin Williams and, Oh, yeah.

1377
01:02:45,061 --> 01:02:46,462
Stand on the desk. Yeah.

1378
01:02:46,462 --> 01:02:47,864
Why am I your captain? My captain?

1379
01:02:47,864 --> 01:02:50,500
How am I forgetting the name of this Dead
Poets Society?

1380
01:02:50,500 --> 01:02:51,567
Thank you.

1381
01:02:51,567 --> 01:02:55,505
Which I literally used to watch every year
to start my teaching career.

1382
01:02:56,038 --> 01:02:58,508
So he just had that sort of way of.

1383
01:02:58,508 --> 01:03:01,410
There were no notes, and he.

1384
01:03:01,410 --> 01:03:02,612
He would talk about love.

1385
01:03:02,612 --> 01:03:05,715
He would talk about,
you know, it was all boys school, right?

1386
01:03:05,715 --> 01:03:09,752
And talk about love in a way
that like, was philosophical.

1387
01:03:09,752 --> 01:03:15,992
And so I sent reconnected with him and
we get together on a fairly regular basis.

1388
01:03:15,992 --> 01:03:19,462
He lives up in, Saratoga, New York,
which is the town my brother lives in.

1389
01:03:20,096 --> 01:03:23,332
And, he's he kept all of our yearbooks.

1390
01:03:23,332 --> 01:03:28,171
He kept news clippings of me and,
and also just randomly

1391
01:03:28,171 --> 01:03:32,441
send me a note once in a while,
just saying how proud he is of me.

1392
01:03:32,441 --> 01:03:35,278
And two for one and what we do,
and he just he's just.

1393
01:03:35,278 --> 01:03:36,746
That guy's a motivator.

1394
01:03:36,746 --> 01:03:39,649
And his John and Kerry's
dad was a lot like that.

1395
01:03:39,649 --> 01:03:43,352
Like, there's so many people that showed
for Kerry's dad's funeral.

1396
01:03:43,352 --> 01:03:44,821
So he carries.

1397
01:03:44,821 --> 01:03:47,790
Dad was not my teacher,
but he was a teacher.

1398
01:03:47,924 --> 01:03:50,626
And he had a huge impact on my life, too.
Yeah.

1399
01:03:50,626 --> 01:03:53,729
So Coach Kissack and, Coach Schlueter.

1400
01:03:54,063 --> 01:03:55,331
Nice. Yeah. That's amazing.

1401
01:03:56,632 --> 01:03:57,733
And our newest question,

1402
01:03:57,733 --> 01:04:02,004
based on our podcast, last episode
with Stephania one, two, three.

1403
01:04:02,038 --> 01:04:05,942
Who's your favorite superhero
or what's your favorite superpower? Ooh.

1404
01:04:06,742 --> 01:04:08,945
I got to go with Superman and flying.
Yeah.

1405
01:04:08,945 --> 01:04:11,948
I mean, I think if, you know,
I was when I was little, like,

1406
01:04:11,948 --> 01:04:15,885
if the idea of being able to fly
would be like, oh, that's pretty cool.

1407
01:04:15,952 --> 01:04:17,220
Yeah, yeah.

1408
01:04:17,220 --> 01:04:18,955
So have we touched on?

1409
01:04:18,955 --> 01:04:21,490
Is there anything that I've missed
that you want to share or talk about?

1410
01:04:21,490 --> 01:04:24,126
Any questions for me. Yeah.
Anything that I missed.

1411
01:04:24,126 --> 01:04:28,998
Well, you had you had asked about,
an experience with a friend and,

1412
01:04:30,633 --> 01:04:32,702
when we were,
we were talking about doing this,

1413
01:04:32,702 --> 01:04:34,370
and so I want to
I did want to share with you

1414
01:04:34,370 --> 01:04:37,773
my favorite moment, you know,
just because I had thought about it a lot.

1415
01:04:37,773 --> 01:04:42,178
And, like, I have an incredibly good
relationship with my wife, like.

1416
01:04:42,178 --> 01:04:44,914
And so we work together.
We found at this together.

1417
01:04:44,914 --> 01:04:46,515
We love to travel together.

1418
01:04:47,950 --> 01:04:49,285
Our our girls.

1419
01:04:49,285 --> 01:04:49,986
I think it's

1420
01:04:49,986 --> 01:04:53,189
literally a challenge for them
because we have such a high crossbar

1421
01:04:53,189 --> 01:04:56,192
with relationships
that they sometimes will say, like,

1422
01:04:56,325 --> 01:04:59,328
okay, how are we going to find someone who
gets along as well as the two of you do?

1423
01:04:59,328 --> 01:05:01,964
And that's not to say
that we haven't had our, you know, stuff.

1424
01:05:01,964 --> 01:05:04,967
But I will say when we,

1425
01:05:05,067 --> 01:05:08,070
I had a moment
when we were in Nairobi, Kenya,

1426
01:05:08,271 --> 01:05:11,674
and we had done a training the day
before we were on this

1427
01:05:12,341 --> 01:05:17,613
literally just Dust Bowl
dirt soccer field with 115

1428
01:05:17,613 --> 01:05:22,118
kids from Nairobi, all wearing
two for one shirt in different stations.

1429
01:05:22,118 --> 01:05:24,020
And we made eye contact

1430
01:05:24,020 --> 01:05:27,957
and we had this look to each other, like,
how did we get here?

1431
01:05:27,957 --> 01:05:28,691
You know what I mean?

1432
01:05:28,691 --> 01:05:32,662
And so to be with my best friend
in a setting like that,

1433
01:05:33,496 --> 01:05:37,900
knowing we were impacting
the globe was really powerful.

1434
01:05:37,900 --> 01:05:40,903
And so when you asked that question,
when you reached out to me,

1435
01:05:41,437 --> 01:05:43,105
I wanted to share that story.

1436
01:05:43,105 --> 01:05:44,140
That's amazing. Yeah.

1437
01:05:45,508 --> 01:05:46,375
Give me my feels.

1438
01:05:46,375 --> 01:05:49,378
Man, that was good. That was pretty good.

1439
01:05:49,679 --> 01:05:50,246
No. Yeah.

1440
01:05:50,246 --> 01:05:53,849
It's good to have a partner,
you know, life partner.

1441
01:05:54,350 --> 01:05:56,052
And that's that's an amazing relationship.

1442
01:05:56,052 --> 01:05:58,254
So 31 years. Congratulations.

1443
01:05:58,254 --> 01:06:00,189
Yeah, yeah, I'm in my 19th year.

1444
01:06:00,189 --> 01:06:03,192
All right,
keep them coming. Yep, I love it.

1445
01:06:03,759 --> 01:06:05,594
And you have three girls.
So you're a girl, dad.

1446
01:06:05,594 --> 01:06:08,297
I am a girl, dad. In fact,
I have a girl dad hat.

1447
01:06:08,297 --> 01:06:12,201
Yeah, and two of them are teaching
and coaching, in Austin, Texas.

1448
01:06:13,502 --> 01:06:16,872
And, the oldest one who tried out
for the local travel soccer

1449
01:06:16,872 --> 01:06:20,242
team, my Irish Catholic daughter works
for the National Council of Jewish Women.

1450
01:06:20,977 --> 01:06:24,046
She does faith
based organizing around social justice

1451
01:06:24,046 --> 01:06:27,950
issues for,
you know, a global, organization.

1452
01:06:27,950 --> 01:06:31,387
And, and, you know, it's obviously
with everything going on in the globe,

1453
01:06:31,387 --> 01:06:35,257
it's, it's challenging work, but,
she she does good work.

1454
01:06:35,458 --> 01:06:36,692
Yeah. It's amazing.

1455
01:06:36,692 --> 01:06:39,195
Yeah. Proud dad too.
Good job. Thanks. Thanks.

1456
01:06:39,195 --> 01:06:39,729
Thanks, man.

1457
01:06:41,597 --> 01:06:41,831
Yeah.

1458
01:06:41,831 --> 01:06:44,300
So, any closing remarks, recommendations?

1459
01:06:44,300 --> 01:06:47,003
Are you listening to any podcast, TV
shows, books?

1460
01:06:47,003 --> 01:06:49,839
Well, we're hoping
actually to maybe start our own podcast.

1461
01:06:49,839 --> 01:06:53,042
I think we're going to call it
the Pudding Play Back into sports podcast.

1462
01:06:53,042 --> 01:06:56,579
It's a mouthful and probably
too long for SEO, but we'll figure it out.

1463
01:06:56,846 --> 01:06:59,849
So I guess maybe that would be a question
I have for you is like,

1464
01:07:00,249 --> 01:07:03,285
why did you start doing a podcast and

1465
01:07:03,886 --> 01:07:07,256
what's the value add been for you
and and doing great.

1466
01:07:07,256 --> 01:07:08,024
Yeah.

1467
01:07:08,024 --> 01:07:10,259
I want to thank Dave from Direct Line
Media.

1468
01:07:10,259 --> 01:07:11,427
None of this would have been possible.

1469
01:07:11,427 --> 01:07:14,864
He invited me into his studio
to do a behind the brand.

1470
01:07:16,165 --> 01:07:20,069
I talked about friends with Feeney
and being a teacher and inspired me to

1471
01:07:20,236 --> 01:07:21,370
to do so.

1472
01:07:21,370 --> 01:07:24,373
And then on the way out,
I said, hey, can I ask the pod?

1473
01:07:24,607 --> 01:07:26,008
Can I ask the questions?

1474
01:07:26,008 --> 01:07:29,812
And, you know, he took it upon himself
and he opened it up and volunteered

1475
01:07:29,812 --> 01:07:31,847
all his time. He's an amazing person.

1476
01:07:31,847 --> 01:07:33,983
Thank you Dave,
I know he's going to listen to this

1477
01:07:33,983 --> 01:07:35,985
in fast motion,
but he's going to listen to this.

1478
01:07:38,254 --> 01:07:39,722
So thank you.

1479
01:07:39,722 --> 01:07:41,057
Direct Line Media is amazing.

1480
01:07:41,057 --> 01:07:43,526
They're just a great, great group.

1481
01:07:43,526 --> 01:07:47,797
Stephanie is all right to check out
our last podcast episode. 123.

1482
01:07:48,030 --> 01:07:50,433
I'm kidding. It was great.

1483
01:07:50,433 --> 01:07:51,467
No, it helps me.

1484
01:07:51,467 --> 01:07:53,469
Like you said, our phones are away.

1485
01:07:53,469 --> 01:07:54,703
We're talking one on one.

1486
01:07:54,703 --> 01:07:56,972
Yeah, bringing back that social peace.

1487
01:07:56,972 --> 01:07:59,175
You're doing great things.
I'm learning something new.

1488
01:07:59,175 --> 01:08:00,576
I love learning something new.

1489
01:08:00,576 --> 01:08:02,344
I'm an audio learner. Yeah.

1490
01:08:02,344 --> 01:08:07,616
You know, I prefer to listen than read or,
you know, so just.

1491
01:08:07,616 --> 01:08:09,485
I'm talking with over 120 people.

1492
01:08:09,485 --> 01:08:13,322
The mayor, the police chief, Kenny Main,
you know,

1493
01:08:13,989 --> 01:08:18,661
some IT people in sports,
the secretary of education.

1494
01:08:18,828 --> 01:08:20,129
You can't beat it.

1495
01:08:20,129 --> 01:08:22,298
Medal of Honor recipient, you name it.

1496
01:08:22,298 --> 01:08:26,435
It was just like such diverse
groups, all doing great things.

1497
01:08:26,435 --> 01:08:27,770
And the little. Old me, that's.

1498
01:08:27,770 --> 01:08:28,771
For Steve Boyle.

1499
01:08:28,771 --> 01:08:31,574
That's very cool. No, but I I'm sure.

1500
01:08:31,574 --> 01:08:34,577
I think your podcast would be great, too,
because you have an angle

1501
01:08:35,077 --> 01:08:36,212
that, you know, you could

1502
01:08:36,212 --> 01:08:39,281
your first guest could be Steve Nash
because he plays soccer and basketball.

1503
01:08:39,281 --> 01:08:39,782
Yeah.

1504
01:08:39,782 --> 01:08:43,285
Oh, or, you know this Travis Hunter guy?

1505
01:08:43,285 --> 01:08:45,754
Well, he's gone both ways in one sport,
but I'm just seen.

1506
01:08:45,754 --> 01:08:46,922
There's so many people.

1507
01:08:46,922 --> 01:08:49,358
Yeah, I knew Ginobili did both sports.

1508
01:08:49,358 --> 01:08:51,360
Deion Sanders you know there's so many Mr.

1509
01:08:51,360 --> 01:08:52,962
Jackson all these people out there. Yeah.

1510
01:08:54,363 --> 01:08:55,898
And you have that going for you.

1511
01:08:55,898 --> 01:08:56,799
So yeah. Exactly.

1512
01:08:56,799 --> 01:09:00,002
And I think also there's
the anti specialization piece.

1513
01:09:00,002 --> 01:09:02,638
But then there's also the equity piece.
The access piece.

1514
01:09:02,638 --> 01:09:04,773
You know like educators like you know,

1515
01:09:04,773 --> 01:09:08,878
you you talk to the Secretary of Education
I heard him speak not long after that.

1516
01:09:08,878 --> 01:09:11,213
And his whole thing was around equity.

1517
01:09:11,213 --> 01:09:13,282
Right. And getting kids the opportunity.

1518
01:09:13,282 --> 01:09:16,418
Like it's one thing to be able
to become a college football

1519
01:09:16,418 --> 01:09:18,454
player, professional athlete,
but it's another thing

1520
01:09:18,454 --> 01:09:20,322
to know how to catch or throw
or know the rules.

1521
01:09:20,322 --> 01:09:21,657
To be able to watch those games.

1522
01:09:21,657 --> 01:09:23,292
You can engage in society.

1523
01:09:23,292 --> 01:09:27,663
So yeah, I think our angles would be,
you know, would be we'd want to walk

1524
01:09:27,663 --> 01:09:28,998
both of the worlds we walk

1525
01:09:28,998 --> 01:09:32,101
in, obviously getting big names on it,
like Eric Feeney and stuff like that.

1526
01:09:32,134 --> 01:09:33,836
You'll be your first guest.
Yeah, right. Yeah.

1527
01:09:33,836 --> 01:09:36,572
I caught a two point conversion
freshman year.

1528
01:09:36,572 --> 01:09:38,040
My friend. The like through to me.

1529
01:09:38,040 --> 01:09:40,543
We still joke about
it was the highlight of my career. Yeah.

1530
01:09:40,543 --> 01:09:43,312
And then you did a baseball swing,
so. Right. Yeah. There you go.

1531
01:09:43,312 --> 01:09:47,283
I won tallest runner at Toad's Place
for the Shamrock and Run.

1532
01:09:47,283 --> 01:09:52,021
Yeah, I did run a marathon
once for four hours and 45 minutes.

1533
01:09:52,054 --> 01:09:53,222
God bless you.

1534
01:09:53,222 --> 01:09:55,724
Yeah, I only ran a faster
because I wanted to get it over with.

1535
01:09:55,724 --> 01:09:56,492
What did you. Do?

1536
01:09:56,492 --> 01:10:00,529
I was just about to be under three hours
when the whole left side of my body

1537
01:10:00,529 --> 01:10:01,063
fell asleep.

1538
01:10:01,063 --> 01:10:05,801
I was in 50th place at the Hartford
Marathon when if the 24.5 mile mark

1539
01:10:05,801 --> 01:10:08,571
the left side I crossed,
I crossed with my hand,

1540
01:10:08,571 --> 01:10:12,208
my shoes in my hands
at three minutes and 21 seconds.

1541
01:10:13,175 --> 01:10:13,509
Yeah.

1542
01:10:13,509 --> 01:10:15,978
So I never ran another one. Yeah.

1543
01:10:15,978 --> 01:10:17,213
Oh boy. I was on.

1544
01:10:17,213 --> 01:10:21,317
I only needed to break 310 and I was just
having a great run and it was hot.

1545
01:10:21,317 --> 01:10:24,520
And I think, you know, I had an MRI done
because they didn't know what happened.

1546
01:10:24,520 --> 01:10:25,921
They thought I might have stroke.

1547
01:10:25,921 --> 01:10:29,425
And, they just said it was probably
a dehydration response

1548
01:10:29,425 --> 01:10:31,694
or some compression on the back
or something like that.

1549
01:10:31,694 --> 01:10:35,397
So I was I was literally weeping
when I, when I did it.

1550
01:10:35,397 --> 01:10:39,935
Yeah, I, I, I was probably a better runner
than I was a basketball player, but,

1551
01:10:40,603 --> 01:10:41,503
and I miss it, man.

1552
01:10:41,503 --> 01:10:43,839
I really miss it. Yeah. Yeah, man, I did.

1553
01:10:43,839 --> 01:10:47,142
I, I got in my fields when I cross too,
because I felt like you

1554
01:10:47,209 --> 01:10:49,178
really accomplished something.
Oh my God. Yeah, yeah.

1555
01:10:49,178 --> 01:10:52,581
My family was there to meet me
and I like, saw them and I just like.

1556
01:10:52,648 --> 01:10:54,149
Yeah, I did it. Yeah.

1557
01:10:54,149 --> 01:10:57,219
Like 27 miles, 26 point
something is a long.

1558
01:10:57,253 --> 01:10:58,153
Shot a big deal.

1559
01:10:58,153 --> 01:11:00,856
And you know why you might all watch
people do marathons.

1560
01:11:00,856 --> 01:11:04,860
No. Like the majority of the people
in this world will never even consider

1561
01:11:04,860 --> 01:11:07,363
doing one. It's a big deal.
Yeah. It's good I did it. Yeah.

1562
01:11:07,363 --> 01:11:09,198
Good for you.
And I'm still trying to play hoop.

1563
01:11:09,198 --> 01:11:10,499
So we got to hoop some day.

1564
01:11:10,499 --> 01:11:11,100
Yeah, I'm.

1565
01:11:11,100 --> 01:11:13,936
I still play in the old man
Sunday morning game.

1566
01:11:13,936 --> 01:11:15,871
And, I have some great year just.

1567
01:11:15,871 --> 01:11:18,674
And that I missed that during Covid
so much.

1568
01:11:18,674 --> 01:11:22,511
And again I think it's one of the things
that motivates me is that I find so much

1569
01:11:22,511 --> 01:11:25,914
joy and value in playing sports
even now as an adult,

1570
01:11:26,282 --> 01:11:29,685
but I wouldn't be doing it
if I didn't learn those things as a kid.

1571
01:11:29,685 --> 01:11:30,386
And when I think about

1572
01:11:30,386 --> 01:11:35,224
how many kids out there, Eric,
that don't have the opportunity to play or

1573
01:11:35,491 --> 01:11:40,429
their sport experience is so negative
because it's a job at a young age,

1574
01:11:40,829 --> 01:11:43,565
I just worry about, will kids be playing
when they're older?

1575
01:11:43,565 --> 01:11:44,199
Yeah.

1576
01:11:44,199 --> 01:11:47,069
And you do get the folks
that maybe took 20 or 30 years off

1577
01:11:47,069 --> 01:11:50,306
and they discover pickleball or whatever,
but that's a long gap.

1578
01:11:50,306 --> 01:11:51,540
Like I never really stopped.

1579
01:11:51,540 --> 01:11:53,509
And I, you know, you're younger than I am
peers.

1580
01:11:53,509 --> 01:11:55,411
You've to haven't stopped either, right?
Yeah.

1581
01:11:55,411 --> 01:11:57,813
I can't stop and continue,
like you said, that

1582
01:11:57,813 --> 01:12:01,617
the relationships I'm building
at the JCC, wonderful network of people.

1583
01:12:02,785 --> 01:12:05,821
Main reason we moved near Wolcott
Park was the park.

1584
01:12:05,821 --> 01:12:07,323
Yeah.

1585
01:12:07,323 --> 01:12:07,990
I go down and get.

1586
01:12:07,990 --> 01:12:11,427
And I jump into some of those pickup
games, and that court still just really.

1587
01:12:11,427 --> 01:12:14,196
Yeah, it's.
I have a real funny quick last story show.

1588
01:12:14,196 --> 01:12:17,366
So one time I'm like, I,
I was over at Eisenhower.

1589
01:12:17,366 --> 01:12:19,134
My, my daughters were playing soccer,
and, like,

1590
01:12:19,134 --> 01:12:20,669
I don't want to watch another soccer game.

1591
01:12:20,669 --> 01:12:22,838
So there's basketball courts right there.

1592
01:12:22,838 --> 01:12:24,873
And I saw some kids playing.

1593
01:12:24,873 --> 01:12:26,775
So I get up
and I go across to the bicycle.

1594
01:12:26,775 --> 01:12:29,778
I'm going to go
try to get in a game over there. And

1595
01:12:30,579 --> 01:12:32,715
and I'm, I'm playing pretty well, like,

1596
01:12:32,715 --> 01:12:35,718
you know, like to a point where I'm like,
I'm feeling pretty good.

1597
01:12:36,218 --> 01:12:39,421
So some other kids show up
and they had come in from Hartford

1598
01:12:39,421 --> 01:12:42,424
and they were younger. And,

1599
01:12:43,392 --> 01:12:45,661
all of a sudden one of the guys

1600
01:12:45,661 --> 01:12:49,832
that I had been scoring against cause
I got OG

1601
01:12:51,266 --> 01:12:52,868
and I was like, devastated.

1602
01:12:52,868 --> 01:12:56,772
So I go home that night and I'm like,
I mean, I was killing this kid and he.

1603
01:12:56,772 --> 01:12:58,307
Calls me OG.

1604
01:12:58,307 --> 01:13:01,443
So I tell him my girls
this story and I'm like, you know,

1605
01:13:01,477 --> 01:13:03,879
I mean, I know I'm old, but does
you have to call me the old guy?

1606
01:13:03,879 --> 01:13:06,382
They're like, dad,
he wasn't calling you the old guy.

1607
01:13:06,382 --> 01:13:07,449
You are. OG.

1608
01:13:07,449 --> 01:13:09,885
You're the original. Gangster.
And I'm like, he.

1609
01:13:09,885 --> 01:13:12,621
That was like, the biggest compliment
he could have given you.

1610
01:13:12,621 --> 01:13:13,856
And I'm like, oh, I feel.

1611
01:13:13,856 --> 01:13:16,992
So bad because I was like,
so mad at him for calling me OG.

1612
01:13:17,192 --> 01:13:19,161
I love it. The OG.

1613
01:13:19,161 --> 01:13:21,463
Yeah, yeah. It's original gangster.

1614
01:13:21,463 --> 01:13:22,798
It's like ultimate compliment.

1615
01:13:22,798 --> 01:13:25,234
Oh I do for I didn't know so yeah.

1616
01:13:25,234 --> 01:13:26,702
Now you know. Yeah.

1617
01:13:26,702 --> 01:13:28,937
Well I had such a blast talking with you.

1618
01:13:28,937 --> 01:13:30,406
I'm so excited.

1619
01:13:30,406 --> 01:13:32,107
Our our future collaborations.

1620
01:13:32,107 --> 01:13:33,842
I'm looking forward to this summer.

1621
01:13:33,842 --> 01:13:35,611
I learned so much about you
in the program.

1622
01:13:35,611 --> 01:13:38,580
Two for one is doing great things
in five countries.

1623
01:13:38,847 --> 01:13:39,782
I mean, keep it up.

1624
01:13:39,782 --> 01:13:40,449
Thanks, mate.

1625
01:13:40,449 --> 01:13:42,885
Thanks. I'm proud to know you,
and I'm really looking forward to it.

1626
01:13:43,919 --> 01:13:47,156
We usually end with be a good friend,
but we're going to say two things today.

1627
01:13:47,156 --> 01:13:49,958
We're going to say life's
too short for one sport.

1628
01:13:49,958 --> 01:13:52,528
Just one sport. Yeah. Oh, excuse me,
I jacked that up.

1629
01:13:52,528 --> 01:13:54,897
That's your life's too short
for just one sport.

1630
01:13:54,897 --> 01:13:56,031
Just one sport. Gotcha.

1631
01:13:56,031 --> 01:13:57,900
And then we'll say be a good friend.
All right.

1632
01:13:57,900 --> 01:13:59,067
On three.

1633
01:13:59,067 --> 01:13:59,935
One. Two, three.

1634
01:13:59,935 --> 01:14:02,671
Life's too short for just one sport.

1635
01:14:02,671 --> 01:14:05,307
Be a good friend. Love it.