July 25, 2023 • 57 mins
Arshay grew up on the West Side of Chicago and his life was forever changed when he joined the first all-black high school rowing team in the nation (and became the captain). As an adult, Arshay found success as a chef before returning to his true passion by starting inner-city rowing teams. He’s the author of “A Most Beautiful Thing,” which was made into a critically-acclaimed documentary by Common, Dwayne Wade, and Grant Hill.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hey guys, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
And we continue now with part three of our conversation
with rche Cooper. Right after these brief messages from our
general sponsors, let's now return to Archa on one of
(00:29):
his crew members.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
There was this kid named Alvin. He was in the
biggest gang.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Which was what was the biggest game?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
It was Travel Vice Lord. They call the set Sla
straight off all money.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Tell our listeners what the nickname is for the neighborhood
because of all the lords.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, so there's a gang called vice Lord and vice
Lord broke broke into many lords. The neighborhood is called
Holy City because all the games were vice lords. You
had conservative vice law travel and vice lad insane vice.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Lord committing courvitive vice lords. What are they like Trump?
Vice Lords? They vote for Trump.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
No, they were more like you know what I mean,
like I guess they would say, they're more organized than
the other games. We're not just going to beat you.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Down, but because wait, we have this document you need
to sign before you're beat down, because as you know,
you broke rules fourteen B. Now sign this and get
your APPO. And so they were all divisions of lords,
and everybody was something lord something Lord something Lord Lord,
(01:39):
and people actually referred to each other as vice lord.
But did they call each other lord lord, Like what's up? Lord? No?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
The lord was going on Lord. No, man, you know
it was lord.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And then it became, ironically enough, the most unholy of
holy situations became nicknamed holy shit.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Holy city, Holy City. And I think this is an
important piece in the story to help people understand this
gang life. I told coach and came up. You know,
I can probably talk about this. I said, Alvin shouldn't
be in the gang because he's I mean, he shouldn't
be on the team because he's fighting people, beating up people.
(02:17):
He was like, no, he's strong, he's good. He's strong.
And I was like, it's toxic, you know. But he's
been coming to practice and he's been training with us.
In the first trip to at we real talk. Were
you afraid of him a little bit?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, definitely afraid of him.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
You know, me see this dude beat people down with
his crew. And I remember we go to Philly and
I sit next to him on the bus. I've seen
he's like this guy, this guy even showing up every day.
And I said, Alvin, you know why you why you?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Why?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
What's up at all? The fighting? Like beating up people,
you know? And and we wrote, I wrote, he actually
wrote right behind me. So we started to build a
little connection. He's having the seat behind me, and so
we rode in pairs, so he was We started to
build a little connection and we started talking a little bit,
but just like basic stuff, you know what I mean.
And and I sat next to him on the bus
(03:13):
and I said, hey, man, like, why are you fighting?
And he said, man, listen, I have never had a
fight because of me. I've never started a fight. When
I first moved here, me and my brother would jump
by ten people and I just told my brother to
run to get dad. Run. I take it. I take it,
I take it. And he said when they when they
(03:33):
finished jumping him, a guy from across the street walked
up to him and said, listen, this is always gonna
happen when you go out of town. When you leave,
it's gonna happen to your little brother. Unless you help us,
you will never have the help. And Alice said, I
had to make it. Not a bad choice, but a
(03:54):
challenging choice. For myself and my brothers, And so every
fight he had he had to help someone else who
would getting into fights just so he can so he
can always have the protection. His little brother can have
the protection when he's gone.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
All right, here we go breaking down stereotype number seventeen.
In this episode, there is a belief that these kids
get into gangs because quote, they just need a sense
of belonging. There may be some truth to that in
some respects, but that has not been my experience. My experiences,
(04:35):
they join the gangs because they're scared to death getting
their asked.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
It's very not that.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
They want to be part of that. They would much
rather be part of a team or school or nurturing
situation or grass or green or something. But it's all
that's available to them, and if they don't, they often
become the victim of the very gang that they subscribe
allegiance to.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It is dangerous being in a gang, but it's even
more dangerous not being in a gang.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So it's just a reality. It's a survival mechanism.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I say in the film, the big question is not
what college you're going to go to, but what gag
you're going to join? For protection. That's the big question.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
People listening to this need to just let that marinate
a little. When your dream is to eat it's paulty,
or go five miles from your neighborhood just to see
a series tower, and that your reality is not where
you're going to college, what kind of job you're going
to have, but which gang you're going to join. And
(05:44):
then you don't understand after hearing that, and you and
you can't get your arms around that there are people
in our country that simply don't have the same privilege
of freedom to grow as other people in our country.
(06:05):
Doesn't speak badly about anybody else. It just speaks to
the reality of situation of guys like you and where
you grew up.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, second, desperate, Yeah, secretary education are one Duncan white man.
He said it. It spoke to me, he said, if
more people look like me, if more people live downtown,
it wouldn't be tolerated.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Wow, And I guess that's strict. Do you find that truth?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I find it true, you know. But what I did
say to Alvin was, if you notice, for two months
you haven't been hanging out with those guys. You've been
in practice every day and That just shows that talent
is everywhere, but access and opportunity is not. Alvin Brother
(07:03):
said in the film when they tore down to YMCA,
and that happened often because of funding, he said, I
ran to the streets. I don't care if you white, black, Hispanic, Asian.
There were one hundred and fifty kids at that YMC.
That's where the counselors, the coaches, the mentors were at.
And now it's torn down and there's one hundred and
fifty kids hanging in the street. So it doesn't matter
(07:25):
what color you are. If there's one hundred and fifty
kids hanging out with nothing to do, it's crazy. Stuff's
gonna happen. Yes, you know what I mean. And U
but rowing came and pood ran to the rowing team,
and so you talk about the outlet for two hours,
like what are you run into? Like why are you
showing up to practice every day? Why are you showing
up to rowing every day? You know it's yes, it's
(07:50):
it's an escape.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
And then through the hook of the respite and escape,
little by little, you kids didn't realize what you were
actually gaining, which was experience you wouldn't have ever had
otherwise had in teamwork. And my guess is, I mean,
(08:12):
I've rote a john bowed across the lake before, and
that will wear you out. And my guess is if
you're with other guys trying to go fast, I mean
it's core strength, it's arm strength, it's cardio, it's you know.
So there's both physical and non physical attributes to a
successful role. What are those?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah, I mean, I mean height helps being tall, But
you know, I think the it's it's a lot more
than the physical piece, right, like being along, being flexible
or being strong. But I think the most important attributes
is like for some people, understanding as a follow you
have to learn to be a leader. As a leader,
you have to learn how to.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Follow because you're all in union.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Because you're all in unison.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I learned in rowing that I cannot do the work
of eight. I have to find eight to do the
work of one. And then we get the job must
gone faster. And it's not about you. It's about the
person who's sitting in front of you and the person
who sits behind you, and the discipline show up every day.
(09:20):
Understanding that the chemistry that you have in the boat
doesn't just happen in the boat, but it's what you
do outside of the boat, when you're asking each other
question is like what keeps you up at night? What
keeps you going personal questions. When Alvin told me that,
I was like, from this day four, I will always
pull for you. You know, when you're willing to get personal,
(09:42):
when you see someone that's working hard and crying out
there and ripping apart their hands and breaking their backs
for each other man, that is something that Alvin always
wanted and was looking for later in the film, and
not to tell the whole story, I start showed up
to his house every morning before school, walking with him
(10:03):
every day to school. He's the best man in my wedding.
You know, that's what sports does, and and that's that's
kind of just like, honestly, what what what we needed?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
You know, we'll be right back. So when you joined
when when when the white boat and the White Lady
(10:38):
and the everybody showed up, you were were you a
freshman or a sophomore?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Sophomore?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Your sophomore? So this led to three years of rowing.
How good did y'all get?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
We got good? I mean you know I say this,
we got really good we got really fast. They came
to a point where we lost Preston, who was amazing,
but he said, man that I'm like, I was doing good,
I was learning a lot. But his mom was still
a drug dealer and he said, you know, the streets
(11:12):
were calling. I saw what she was making, you know.
And he was a great accents to the team, and
we lost them. It was Malcolm was the strongest guy
on our team, and his dad was like, no, he
can't be on the team, and I don't want you
doing like you know.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
His dad.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Brother was hung on a tree in the South and
he just never Malcolm had to sneak to practice. That
just never agreed with him, you know, he just didn't
want him on the team. He was just like, I
don't trust the space, right, I don't trust the space.
And so we had to recruit other kids, right. So
we were always at the same time in the constant state,
(11:55):
me and Alvin and the constant state of rebuilding. And
then we got more competitive and we got a new
coach and we got faster, but I think at the
same time, performance wise, not only preparing to be good,
it was real hard at the same time that we
still had to go back home and we're losing friends,
(12:17):
and we still have to worry about stuff at school.
We had to still worry about the mental peace. And
oh my god, my cousin got shot. They oh Alvin.
Oh man, Man, my cousin just got killed. I can't
go to practice this week, guys, like, you know what,
I got to help my mom work. I got to
miss practice this week. You know, I got a babysit.
My mom got to work with double. We had a
lot of that to deal with. We were act we
(12:39):
were strong, but we had a lot.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
To deal with. Once again, not the same reality as
your competition. So what do you do after you graduate
high school?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Man, I graduated high school. I've dedicated a year in
my life to full time service with the Mara Corps.
I wanted to do more. I wanted to dedicate you
in my life to my community. And I learned that
from just like there was one rule that coach Victor,
he was the black guy. He had. He said, leave
the pole house better than you found it. And he
(13:20):
said that when I was the captain. I became the
captain of the team.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
By the way, football coaches said that about the locker room.
So leave the locker room better than you found it.
Don't believe your yes. Yes? And I used to stand
another very valuable left.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yes. I used to step over it all the time.
I step over He said, no, you leave the bow
house better than you found it, even if you didn't
make the mess. And I would say, well, how does
that teach responsibility to the person who was here before us?
He was like, in our poll house, you leave it
better than you found it, even if we didn't make
the mess, because it makes it easier for the next group.
And he's like, yo, you'll get it. And what I learned.
(13:53):
It's like man like, some people will say, I have
nothing to do with what those black kids were doing,
you know when the cops beat them up. Oh, I
had nothing to do with what happened in the South
two hundred years ago. You know. I have nothing to
do with kids who have mental health issues. I have
my own kids to worry about. We step over it.
But we benefit from this country, and so we can
(14:14):
leave it better than we found it, even if we
didn't make the mess. It makes it easier for the
next generation.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
All right, that's awesome. Say it again.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
If we can leave this country, our community this world
better than we found it. Even if we didn't make
the mess. It makes it easier for the next generation.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Do you love this country?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I love this country.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
How do you feel when you watch people kneel during
the national anthem as a black man?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
As a black man, I understand because this country. I
love this country.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
But that's disrespectful.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It's not disrespectful to me. Here's why, because, oh.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
But it is disrespectful because everybody says it is. Yeah,
talk to me about it. Talk talk to me about it.
I want you to explain it to me.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I want you I explained it this way. It's a
little bit of what I said earlier. I don't know
if I would have thought this way if I didn't
have the interaction with the kids that became my friends,
the white private school kids. The moment that I was
walking from the boat house in the white neighborhood with
my friends and the cops came and they looked at me,
(15:23):
opened my book back and they emptied. I was like,
what are you doing in this neighborhood. They used to
happen to me all the time in my neighborhood, and
I would say to myself, okay, because it's a bad neighborhood,
it said, challenging, challenging neighborhood. So of course, like they're
going to look through my stuff because people got guns.
I didn't think about that as a kid. And then
when I was in this good neighborhood, what it was,
(15:44):
no violence, it still happened to me. And that's when
again I said to myself, like man, like I volunteer.
I'm the captain of my team. I passed the Constitution test,
I know the Declaration of Independence, I know the Preamble.
I've never been since spendings for school, never got in trouble.
And then when I ask my friends did this happen
to them, the white private school kids, they said, it
(16:06):
have never happened. And I realized, I said, you know,
I went to a baseball game and I sung the
national anthems with goosebumps in my arms. And when I
ask other people who don't look like me that they
didn't experience what I experienced with who I consider an
American hero, it made me feel like I was living
(16:26):
in a certificant in America. And it doesn't mean that
people who grew up like me are disrespecting it. We're
trying to help people don't understand.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
So who is your American hero?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
My American hero is it's the grandma's, it's the pastors,
it's the educators, it's the normal people who are trying
to just leave the boat house better than they found.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
It is George Washington worthy of our price?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I don't look at it. I don't. I don't know
if I like it that way.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I without them, we don't have a country.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
We don't.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
He also owned slaves. Yep, it was also two hundred
and whatever sixty years ago. How do we how do
we balance that from a from a black dude from
the West side of Chicago that admittedly made friends with
(17:30):
white kids from the nice part of town. You have
a very unique perspective. Yeah, so I think that. I
will tell you so many especially in the South, but
so many white folks. Again it's it's it's like the
it's like the white privileged thing. They do want to understand,
(17:55):
but they also are very off put by the degredation
of people that we see as founding fathers because two
hundred and fifty years ago they were slave owners. And
people have a hard time balancing, you know, how do
I check myself and learn and be real and become
(18:24):
present and cognizant with the reality of the plight of
a lot of black folks from inner cities, but also
not not allow what I do believe a positive heritage
from the people who found our country left us. How
(18:46):
do I balance it?
Speaker 2 (18:49):
It's a hard balance, you know. And to be honest,
I think I'm still working on that. But Rowan and
people may disagree agree with me, like Rowan taught me,
you know, and rowing you row forward by looking in
the opposite direction. That is so I learned that it's
(19:11):
okay to look back as long as you keep pushing forward.
It's been a trouble pass, you know. And it's o
Kate acknowledge that these things happen, and there are generations
of trauma because some of it. But you have to
keep pushing forward.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So AmeriCorps for two years. That's cool. But I read you, Uh,
you learned to cook a little bit somewhere. Where'd you
where'd you go? You went to culinary school or something? Wrong? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
I went to look corder on blue and where I
started off in Chicago and then raised a little bit
of money to take some lessons at the QUARTERA on
Blue England, which was amazing. And London, London, England, that's.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
One of my favorite cities. Oh that's such a good London.
So you you you went to culinary school in London.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, and the way you do.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
You dreamed to see Sears Tower five blocks away and
now you're cooking.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Well, I have to tell you this, and I think,
you know, it's it's awesome to have, like great like
those entrepreneurship classes really helped. But clonary was introduced to
our high school for anyone who wants allowed to cook.
But I only went because you know, we didn't have
a ton of food. So I was like, yeah, yeah,
you get to eat what you cook. So and I
realized I was really good at it. And I was
like volunteering on the weekends and not only volunteering on
(20:42):
on the weekends, like the Hilton O'Hare, Like our teacher
really hooked use with some really great internships and so
I was rolling and doing some internships and racing too
and doing a lot. And then when I went to
the Quarter and Blue, I was like, man, I got
how do I pay for this? And I was like,
can I need a plan? You know? And and what
I decided to do is I got a job at
the Starbucks in Little Italy, which is one of the
(21:05):
wealthiest neighborhoods in Chicago. And that's what all the men
goes into, you know, lawyers, doctors, everyone. And so I'm
there and I'm meeting all these folks and I'm like, hey,
my name is Roche. Every now and then, my coffee's
on you. And they said, oh, if you ever need
a dentist.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I got you.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
If you need a doctor, I got you. If you
need a lawyer, I got you. And I was like, yeah, yeah,
how's your family doing? And so I went up. I
went to this restaurant called Blackbird. It's a French restaurant.
I talk about it in my book, and I said,
can I work? You know, chef Paul Kahn just won
the James Spirit Award and I worked for free. Can
actually got me hooked there and he was like yeah.
(21:41):
I was like, I'm just cutting mushrooms, I'm cutting carrots,
simple stuff. Best French restaurant in Chicago. I go to
my school and I asked them to help me make
some business cards and I found five good guys from
my class. I go to Starbucks every day. I make
these cards. I start putting in sleeves of the starbus comings.
(22:02):
That's hilarious and CATERI families, couples and everyone else. And
they say. Everyone was like, you want to cook? You
a good chef. I was like, yeah, I go to
the Quarter Blue and I work at Blackbird. You work
at Blackbird. I didn't tell I was cutting onions for free.
I said, yeah, I work at Blackbird. And I started
getting a lot of business and I was making money
and I was paying these guys at school ten dollars
(22:24):
an hour and I was making some dough and so
that's how I was able to pay for that trip.
And so from there I got a job. And I
say that to say that after the Quarter on Blue,
this guy named Bobby, this guy named Jeff linked me
up with this guy named Bobby. Bobby was head of
hospitality and cooking for the World Wrestling Entertainment WWE with
(22:47):
John Cena, the Rock, all these guys. And he was like,
and I go for a job. I tell him my
story about intern for free at a sport where there
are no cheerleaders, they're no busload of fans, but it's
rowing the Starbucks story, the BlackBerry story, and he said,
because of what you've done as a sixteen, seventeen, eighteen
(23:09):
eighty year old kid is the reason why you have
the dream job today. And that's what I always tell
young kids. What you do today, what you do now,
matters for your future.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Man, that is a long way from a boiling water
fot pull of chitlings laying as a long way away.
So then then you like her cooking? It did where else?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Oh Wanner broa WB So I was doing like cooking
on food sets. Yeah, we're wrestling entertainment the whole thing. Yeah,
I'm doing catering.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
And like, so, I mean, you reaching a dream and
then you say, you know what, I love this, This
is great. But I'm called.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
That happened during that Chipotle story. When they asked me,
you got to tell these kids your story you're here,
I was like no. When I went home that night
after thinking about that kid, I am not Everyone faces
Goliath in their youth. I didn't deal with my trauma.
I just buried it and I talked about it. Is
(24:09):
you buried it alive. It's always there when you don't
deal with it. My mom being a drug addict, not
saying the word dat to day in my life, teacher
telling me I was gonna die before I was eighteen,
fell in the eighth grade. All that stuff came back
when I went home that night in my swinking New
York apartment, and I had a moment like when hope
(24:33):
and the ability to change the world, Like that feeling
that comes upon you is not always present, but when
it's there, how do you take that moment and go
with it? It was almost like when you was a
kid at night and you watch a commercial at like
three o'clock in the morning and it says feet these
starving kids in Africa, or or be the abused dogs. Yah, yeah, yeah,
(25:00):
and then the numbers in the bottom. He's like, oh
my god, I gotta do something and do something, and
then your show comes back on. You start laughing, you
fall asleep, you wake up, you gotta go to work,
and you forget about everything that you just saw the
night before, right, And I had those moments every time
I went to church. So I went to a gallap
I went to an event where I was say, I
gotta do something, and then I got distracted by the
need and I fell asleep on the knee. I forgot
(25:21):
about it, and I didn't want that to happen, because
that's your pole. A story just stuck with me, and
that's when I started writing my first sentence. It didn't
it didn't start off that way. First sentence of my
mom was a drug addict, and I was like, gosh.
And that's when I wrote the story of the fan Wow.
And that's when I started writing my book no On.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
And I get your you know, starting to write the book,
but you don't have anything. Nobody really knows your story.
And you start working yourself out of your cooking career
and into your current I don't know what you would
call it. I guess nonprofit profit career. I guess, yeah.
(26:08):
So you know what was? How did you how? And why?
What precipitated you walking away?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I call it, like you know, I returned home to
the place that gave to me. I didn't move back
to Chicago first. I actually started going back, which is
important to the story. I decided I can. I would
volunteer with that group at the school it's a charter school,
(26:42):
and start working with them and giving them the same
answers that was given to me. And then I went
to another school called Eastside Community High School, and I
was like, man, these kids need rowing, you know. And
so that's when I was like, I called up up
to and I was like, hey, I want I need
rowing machines. I need to get keep as called up.
(27:04):
Can I need some rowing machines. I want to teach
kids how to row. And so I started rowing program
while still slowly cooking, working my way out of this job.
And I'm still writing and.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
They started rowing team. You're writing, You're still cooking, so
you're really transition transition.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
And eventually I stopped cooking because more people was like,
our Shay come to my school and he's getting paid
like one hundred dollars to speak out of school, one
hundred and fifty dollars. But that was a lot for
me to just to tell you the story, you know,
and people start hearing. And then someone said, hey, I
want you to speak at the US Rowing Convention, and
that's when I exploded. People are like, oh my god,
this dude got a story, like you got to come
(27:45):
to my bow house and help me, help me bring
people together. We are a programm in a white community,
but we need to we want to engage the black community.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
How do we do?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
How do we do? How do we go in there?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
What do we do?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
You know? And and so I started helping in that area,
and then I'm writing my book at the same time.
And it's good because I forgot a lot of the
water terms and so being around that it helped me
to write.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Again. That's interesting because probably as you're writing, you're reliving.
You're reliving, and as you're teaching, it's helping your writing. Yes,
I mean, it's the whole thing is kind of organically marinating.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yep, marinating. And I finished the book. I shop it
to eight editors and publishers. They all said, no, you
didn't win gold, didn't win a championship, You're not a writer,
and that a lot of no's, And so I was like,
I'm going to self publish it. I'm going to hustle.
I was a hustlers, a self.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Published Yeah, it's the same guy that was putting business
cards inside the I have no doubt that you were
going to hustle it up.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And so I'm dropping books off everywhere, Meilon books to everyone,
books in the Olympics, like sending the books to schools.
Blah blah blah, and I'm getting all these calls we
love your story, we love your story, we love your story.
And they got into the hands of Mary Mazio, filmmaker
Olympic Rower, who said, I want to turn this book
into a documentary. My friend Gret Hill, I want to
(29:17):
bring them in as a producer, and Gret Hill got
Dwayne Wade and they got calm and involved, and the
buzz was picking up. Or Shade not only wrote this
self published book and during this film, but he's doing
work with kids who grew up just like he did.
And the kids are going to college and they'll come speak.
That's when the big publishing house, Macmillan, was like, we
(29:40):
read your story, we want to do it. We want
your book, and we want to get it out to
a broader audience. And they did, and I started seeing
the people the books are winning awards, and I saw
the people who I pitched the book for retweeting. And
so from there the film got out and people loved it.
(30:01):
It was amazing, It changed lives. He brought in more
money to help the foundation, which gave.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
You now the platform, gave you actually work.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
The found nine cities later and good news this year
our Shae Cooper will be going to South Africa and
the Bahamas to help launch a new Prime program.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
That is so cool, that is fantastic. We'll be right back. Incredibly.
Archey's book, A Most Beautiful Thing was then turned into
a great documentary by Dwayne Wade, Grant Hill, and Common,
(30:43):
and he and his high school crew members did something
pretty unusual during the filming. You guys have a uh
have a reunion road and uh and if I get
this right up, will let you tell, but I'll just
lead it in. I think one of your teammates had
an ankle monitor or the other jail and the cops
(31:06):
were not part of their reality. And then you and
your brilliant bright by decided, Yeah, let's row with cops.
Talk about it. It's so cool.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah. You know, while we was filming, there was two
things that stuck out to me. First was the mom said,
there's two fears they have. My black sun interaction in
a different neighborhood in our community, my son interaction with
white police. And I was like me, being a person
who loved to preach, hope and go after things, I said,
(31:42):
what can I do to reduce the fears of my moms.
I know I'm helping with these communities, but I gotta
do something about the other fear. And I know that
there's some things in this world. I learned from Rowing.
There's some things in this world you won't see unless
you do it. And I said, I I talked about
(32:02):
that that quote that Rowin taught me that I can't
do the work of eight, but I need eight people
to do the work of one, and we get that
much faster. In our community, there are black activists working
with educators, preachers, business owners and grandmothers and politicians. But
(32:22):
why not the cops because they have to work there
every single day, seven people pulling the eight. You'll move,
but you won't. It won't move effectively unless the eight
is moving. And so and the Costs is one of
the eight, and they're in our community. And and so
(32:44):
I told the guys, I was like, listen, I think
I'm uh want to get cops to Row. And they
were like, yeah, yeah, we can roll against them. The
boys can be over here and our people can be
over there.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
I was like no, no, no, no, no no no.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
I said, you know, as a teacher, you will always
forget some of your students but as a student, you'll
never forget your teacher, and we have our opportunity to
be a teacher, to teach them something about us, about
this sport and bring them to the same water where
we didn't get along at first, where we literally hate
each other, and somehow it became a place of healing.
(33:24):
And to be real with you, I made that decision
based on building the bridge. They made the decision based
on survival. If we interact with them and they get
to learn our teenage, known about our teenagers who where
they hook and sag their pants, but great kids, that
maybe it will change something for them. And I found
(33:47):
four white cops and man, it wasn't It was awkward
at first, it was very awkward. But in order to
have alignment, you have to readjust the lands. You have
to be able to talk to each other, and to
move anywhere in the boat, you have to be moving
to each other. To move anywhere in this world, you
(34:08):
have to be moving together. And I told my story
and I wanted to hear their story. But I have
to say this because it's not in the film, it's
not in the book, it's not it's not anywhere. There's
a scene where the guys were rolling with their kids.
Did you know kids how to row? Before that scene?
After that scene, we was going to do the scene
(34:29):
with the cops, but the cops came with some of
their kids. And what broke the awkwardness is that when
the cops kids and the guys kids all got in
the tanks and they were pulling and they were having
fun and they were talking and it wasn't a care
or disconnect in the world, and it was a learning
opportunity for all the adults who have in their heads
(34:53):
this is the way it's supposed to be. Oh, this
is our brotherhood and NAI's debro. There was none of that.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
No, Actually, the kids in the boat is the way
it's supposed to be. Yes, Yes, when the kids in
the boat was the way it's supposed to be, and
everyone was like, dang, like this is the way it's
supposed to be. Like they taught us, they didn't even know.
And that's when we all got in the boat and
I was coaching. We invited the Olympic coach out and
(35:20):
we started moving together and we had conversations that were
uncomfortable but was amazing, And the most powerful part was
Alvin who was my best man at the Why and
who was fighting? Who searched four our four years in
jail later on in life because he shot at someone
who beat up his sister, officer Lou. Also, you didn't
(35:44):
even know how to swim. We didn't even know it.
And he's scared.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
And why didn't know how to swim?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
He didn't know how to swim?
Speaker 1 (35:52):
You mean you mean you mean that happened? That happened. Well,
there's another stereotype just destroyed by you.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Up and I heard Alvin say sits Hall, like I
got you. Here's this guy who's done four years. There's
this copy in front of him that has a lot
of fear, and Al's like, dude, I've been here, I
got you. And ever since that day, the way both
of them gravitated towards each other was something I have
(36:27):
never seen. This unlikely lifeboat changed these guys life.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
There's a guy in Las Vegas named John Ponder, twenty
year criminal from Brooklyn who ended up finally going to
the federal PENITENTIARYA because he robbed a bunch of banks
and through a long series of circumstances and what he
(36:55):
would tell you or blessings, he's come out, and he
started a re entry program. And the recidivism rate that
his organization experiences is like ten percent against a national
average of somewhere around eighty percent. Those numbers are close,
but the point is unbelievable successful. And you know what
(37:17):
his success he attributes to is that the returning citizens
from jail that are paroles are, like lots of these organizations,
work life skills, learn how to do internet and email,
and learn how to get a job and go on
an interview. The difference with his is each one of
(37:38):
those guys are matched with a Las Vegas Police Department
man or woman at THEI whatever. And what John said
that I've never forgotten to me is what happens is
the cop starts seeing the convicts without the orange jumpsuit on,
(37:59):
and the convict start seeing the cops without the badge on.
And when the jumpsuit and the badge is erased, all
you have are two people. And I gotta believe when
Alvin and the cops and the whole mixed up crew
was going on, the cops weren't didn't have a gun
(38:19):
or badge on, right, and through rowing, they got to
just see each other's human beings.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And that's what Macco said in the film. He said,
once they got on those uniforms, you know it was cool.
They go back home to families and wives and kids,
and they human beings and they saw us the same.
And I would say the most powerful moment they have
volunteered with me. They helped me bring growing back to
the high school. I was in California and they showed
(38:50):
up to help. I was just at Northwestern University and
the other showed up to help like they've been there.
But the most powerful moment is that we filmed this
in twenty eighteen twenty when George Floyd was murdered. We
have this group chat because we all chatted all the time.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
You mean the road, your rogue guy and the cops, because.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
We raced together, because we won team We have one
eight we raced together goes to the neighborhood. And the
beauty of that when we raced together in July to
have a tent of like their colleagues and their kids
and all boys from the neighborhood and and and all
together and cheering us on. And then you hear the
guys from neighborhood tell the cause, say this is my son,
like he's so good man. Sometimes you have bad days,
(39:31):
but he's great, like, you know, the it was just
just cool.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
It was cool.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
And he was making jokes like, hey, the cops get
one the guys, Hey, where does why?
Speaker 1 (39:38):
I know you always wear white?
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Started. It was all these jokes, right, and.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Like, but that's when race doesn't matten, when you can
joke about it with it really doesn't.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, it was It was awesome. The powerful moment was
George Floyd was murdered and I started messaging with the guys,
and right George Froy's murdered, we did a top a
a segment on the Today Show and with those guys,
and one of the cops said, he said, when George
Floyd was murdered, I was working downtown on the protest
(40:13):
and had a ton of bricks thrown at me. And
he said, I realized that day, through our relationship, that
I can go home and take my uniform off, but
you can never take your black skin off. And I said,
thank you for saying that. How do you have that
conversation with your colleagues? And that opened the door for
(40:39):
some really courageous conversations with us, and that was always
a turning point in a good way, because we always
had a mission. One mission of mine is to keep
kids safe, both of us, both groups. And there was
times of like, well you need to see this is
(40:59):
the way I see. You don't understand when the grandma
calls and say he has a blue sweater. You see
your kid's a blue sweater, and grandma got robbed and
grandma got hurt. We have to make a decision to
take all three, you know what I mean, Like you're
helping us to understand, but also telling them, hey man,
Alvin joined the game because he had to help others,
and they were like, oh my god. He didn't make
bad choices. He made tough choices, Like the conversations were
(41:20):
conversations that I can't have at a protest. But once
I invited him to my boat, my barbecue because they
work in our neighborhood eight hours a day and they
need to learn our names, and I want them to
hear my story and I want to hear their story.
That's when we started to connect. So the way you
(41:43):
mean when you're just human beings, we just human beings.
And so the mistake we make in our country is
that we do too much calling out and no calling in.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
And you yeah, you you.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
But it reminds me of Valvin. If I would have
saw him the first time it was like, hey, you
don't need to be on this team, he would have
socked me in a jaw. But I called him in.
I set next him on the boat. I sat next
to him on the machine, and I said in my book,
what I loved about Ken, our coached is Jewish guy,
University of Pennsylvania. What he done differently is that my
(42:24):
relationship in school with security guards or teachers that I
only heard from them when I was doing wrong, talking
at me, and then when I had a bad day,
they was like, tell me, what's the problem, what's going
on at home? I'm not telling you right. But Ken
made deposits. When you go to a bank and make
a deposit, you can't get it. You know, you get
(42:45):
a withdrawal, but you can't get a withdraw if you
don't make deposits. And so when you have coaches and
people making deposits in your life, and when you ask
what's the problem, you will always get a withdrawal. And
so I learned to call in. I learned to make
deposits in cops light. So when I say, hey, man,
tell me about George Floyd, I always get withdrawal because
(43:08):
I'm making deposits.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
We'll be right back if we're ever going to ail.
So much of what divides us as a country, which
(43:34):
is not just racial, it's racial, it's political, it's faith based,
it's abortion, it's all of it, right, But what scares
me so much is that wokeness cancel culture and political correctness.
It makes us really afraid to be willing to talk
(43:56):
because I might say something that is a talking point
for one group or another, and then you automatically sum
me up and assume you know exactly who I am,
what I think, where I'm from, and I what's you know?
And in tool we break down those barriers and talk
(44:16):
like white cops and black row people? What a what
a row people called oxman or something?
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (44:26):
There it is row people, right. But what I'm saying
is is that is that I'm so I am so
anti cancel culture, woke this political that not because I
(44:48):
don't think there's a need for us to watch our
tongues and how we approach one another, because we do,
but because I think with the pendulum has swung so
far in our culture now that it is prohibiting people
that aren't just like each other from simple having simply
having real civil conversations about stuff that matters. And without that,
(45:09):
we're never going to be able to learn the humanity
about one another and grow. And your story illustrates that
when those barriers are removed, the phenomenal growth that can
take place. So what are you doing now? Man?
Speaker 2 (45:28):
I have a national foundation what's it called a Most
Beautiful Thing inclusion fun In the last year and a half,
we introduced two thousand kids of colors of this what
if rowing in what cities and Baltimore, DC, Chicago, Newburgh,
New York, Waco, Texas, Stockton, California, Philadelphia, Newark, New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Y'all going to screw up Rowland. Y'all go into y'all
gonna end up making rowing look a whole lot different.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yeah, you know, I was it's good. You know, someone
told me in the interview, they say, so our share,
it's amazing, you're changing the face of rowing, And I
was like, you know what. I what I told them
is like, you know what, though I don't want to
change the face of rowing, I want to add new
faces to rowing and beautiful. It's a beautiful thing because
(46:25):
the history of sports have told us.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
That you're the Serena Williams of rowing. Man Man, and
you know, I A.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
I don't want to do so much more when I
roll in my neighborhood Bill, just like when people watch
your yeah you know, or where I grew up. I
don't want people to say that's the author, that's the chef,
or that's the rower.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
You also don't want to be the black rower. Yeah, no,
you don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Yeah, but I want people to say, you know what,
that dude, that's the hope for my community, that's the
hope for our kids. When I think of some of
the greatest leaders like MLK, I don't think about his
career as an educated preacher, but I think about the
hope that he runs in his country. And I think
about Harriet Tubman. I don't think about a career as
a union spy, but the freedom that she brung to
(47:13):
so many people who look like me or even Gandhi.
I don't say, oh, the attorney, but the piece that
he brought to so many villages.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Can I ask you a question, I hear what you're
what you're saying, and I think it's cool and you
and you evoked Harriet Tubman and MLK and Gandhi all
people that are black and brown. Can you evoke a
would you, in just natural conversation evoke a white hero?
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, I was gonna say about the Teresa. I was
gonna say about the Teresa next.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
All right, what about it? What about a white male? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Absolutely, man. I mean I think that you hit the
are in white savior, right. I think that we all
have the ability to be heroes. And I think that
Ken was a hero and can now part that's the
(48:16):
guy who team Bob Mouseikowski who started a baseball team program.
They were heroes. I think that sometimes where it gets
people should never take away the work that the work
and the love that a white man had brung to
a neighborhood of folks who don't look like him. I
(48:38):
think what people, well the right people will say, well,
I've been doing this in this neighborhood and I don't
get the media attention that that person got because it's different,
and it's ways to address that. But we should also
take away the work that Can and other men like
(49:00):
you have done and at at the moments, I lost
sight of that. But it changed when I spoke to
Seattle scholars and this white dude said, I have this
was recent. I have sixty white men on my team,
and I'm working to change that. But forty of these
(49:24):
guys said they're here because of r Sha Cooper.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Okay, what that is perfect, And what I'm getting to
is you naturally evoked heroes. And you said m O.
King and U Joundee and yeah, all right, And I
think if I'm sitting asking a white guy, he's gonna say,
(49:50):
fix some white people. It's just natural, right, I mean,
if a white dude, yeah, I mean maybe it's I
don't know. If it's baseball, it's Babe Ruth. Yeah. Who
would be your hero in baseball?
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Yeah, Jackie Robinson?
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Right, Okay. If it's football, maybe Joe Montana. Who's yours?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Oh wow, Well you know that's for me. It's a
Chicago guys.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
I was going to say, I was thinking's Walter.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Yeah, I was gonna yeah, Yeah, it's somebody O waltsa
Paytony why not?
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Why not man? Why not buckets? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (50:24):
He loved the film, by the way.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Okay, but you see my point.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
I see your point.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
You know where we got to get where white people
and black people don't even consider race when they think
about their heroes. But we don't get there until we
can have the conversations. And we don't get there until
people are not surprised when they see black kids rowing.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yeah wow wow.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
And you're part of that solution. Your life is part
of that solution. I mean what Baltimore, DC, all that stuff.
I mean, that is just so cool. But we can't
get there unless we can talk and figure out each
other's humanity.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
Right right, I have to say this last thing. I mean,
if whatever, I won't know how much time we have.
I got a call from a library and he said,
we bought three hundred books we donated to a school
and the school has just seen your movie Ourshae Cooper.
You need to come here, beautiful. I said, okay, okay,
(51:35):
this was going six months ago. I said okay, okay,
and they said, no, we need you to come. I said, okay,
where where do I need to come? They said, Alliance, Ohio.
Where Alliance, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
I was like, that's got to be in the middle
of note.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
I was like, where is that? And they said, you
got to fly to Pittsburgh and drive an hour and
a half into Alliance, Ohio. Fly to Pittsburgh, pick up
my buddy Matt. From Pittsburgh. We drive to Alliance Ohigh
five minutes left in the GPS, and it's Confederate flex everywhere.
I'm like where, man, I go to a U turn,
(52:10):
you know, and so you know, I go into the
school and I'm thinking.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
Of my head driving school, thinking do these folks look
like I know, you know what?
Speaker 2 (52:22):
When he said I need you, they need you, I
was thinking in my head that they were kids who
looked like me. Because he's like, oh, they.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
Got to you know, they got to meet I know
where you're going. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
Yeah. And I walk into the school, don't see a
kid that looks like me, but they would cheer me
on like I was Lebron James.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
Man. Was it as white as your high school was black?
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (52:46):
That white? Yes? Like white white white?
Speaker 2 (52:49):
I mean like white kids have never heard of rowing
white And they were.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
Like white kids never heard about country.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Country man and the first kid. I have these kids
messages on my phone from Instagram because they have the
best messages I've ever seend. I've received so many amazing messages.
The first kid stood up and said, Bill, thank you
for your story because I have unlearned everything that my
(53:19):
parents taught me about people who look like you. I
couldn't even finish the rest. Man, I was like, the
teachers will tell you. I stood back, like I couldn't
even answer other questions because I couldn't get past that.
That's when I knew I was making an impact when
I see kids who look like me and said, Hey,
you spoke at my school three years ago. Now I'm
(53:40):
ruining at cal Berkeley.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
Now I'm ruining at this college. Like I knew, but
I didn't really understand it until like this kid who
walked into the boat house was like, I mean there's launcher.
Was like, I'm not doing that's no one looked like me, Like.
I just didn't understand until that day that man, like, Wow,
(54:02):
when you act being on yourself your career, man, like,
true change happens, you know what I mean? And man,
it's I realize at the same time that the hope
I was given because we all have kept I've received
hope at some point in our lives. The problem is
that we keep it. It was never minded to keep,
(54:25):
but to also give. And I realized it's all about
the hope you give.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
From stepping over pools of blood running from gunshots that
was so monotonous that it was no more noticeable than
the clicking of a fan in his apartment all the
way to Rule, Ohio, where a white kid thanks you
(54:55):
for changing his perspective of people that look like you
income from places like you learned all from the bottom
of a boat. What a story, bro, And you're still involved, Yeah,
not quitting. Let me ask something. Somebody wants to start
(55:17):
a row team in their city. Can they call on you?
Speaker 2 (55:20):
They can call on me. We're ready to find you. Hey,
they can find me rsha Cooper dot com. My email
is there, our work, our articles on what we've done,
and we'll come with our team. We'll check it out
and then we'll introduce them to wellness.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
What if somebody wants you to come speak to their
organization and tell them about that same.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Thing, same thing? Hit me up. My email is there.
I always respond and I love to come speak.
Speaker 1 (55:45):
My brother. I can't thank you enough for joining me
today and sharing your story and your wisdom. And you
know there's some questions I asked with specific intent, and
some things I said that I really just trying to
get the listeners to to think a little deeper and
(56:09):
maybe a little different about some of the realities of
our world. But you're a hero man, and you are
just a normal guy who's done extraordinary things. And I
know you're an inspiration to a lot of people, but
you're an inspiration to me because if there's more normal
folks like you in this world, just filling the needs
(56:30):
in our communities, we can fix a lot of what
else is an army of you would change everything. And
I just I can't thank you enough, and I can't
tell you out how much I've enjoyed being with you.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Thank you too. And I have to say that I
didn't know many years ago, when I was sitting in
my couch watching the trailer to Undefeated, that I'll be
sitting here across from you well dreams of still being eliminated.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
We're both dudes and never expected to be here. Through
God's grace, we are and hopefully some people got some
inspiration from conversation. Thank you, thank you, and thank you
(57:16):
for joining us this week. If our Shay or another
guest has inspired you in general or better yet to
take action. Please let us know how I'd love to
hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill
at normalfolks dot us. And if you enjoyed this episode,
subscribe to the podcast, rate it and review it, share
it with friends and on social The things that will
(57:38):
help grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'll see you next week.
Hey guys, it's Bill Courtney with an army of normal folks.
And we continue now with part three of our conversation
with rche Cooper. Right after these brief messages from our
general sponsors, let's now return to Archa on one of
(00:29):
his crew members.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
There was this kid named Alvin. He was in the
biggest gang.
Speaker 1 (00:38):
Which was what was the biggest game?
Speaker 2 (00:41):
It was Travel Vice Lord. They call the set Sla
straight off all money.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Tell our listeners what the nickname is for the neighborhood
because of all the lords.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
Yeah, so there's a gang called vice Lord and vice
Lord broke broke into many lords. The neighborhood is called
Holy City because all the games were vice lords. You
had conservative vice law travel and vice lad insane vice.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Lord committing courvitive vice lords. What are they like Trump?
Vice Lords? They vote for Trump.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
No, they were more like you know what I mean,
like I guess they would say, they're more organized than
the other games. We're not just going to beat you.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Down, but because wait, we have this document you need
to sign before you're beat down, because as you know,
you broke rules fourteen B. Now sign this and get
your APPO. And so they were all divisions of lords,
and everybody was something lord something Lord something Lord Lord,
(01:39):
and people actually referred to each other as vice lord.
But did they call each other lord lord, Like what's up? Lord? No?
Speaker 2 (01:46):
The lord was going on Lord. No, man, you know
it was lord.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And then it became, ironically enough, the most unholy of
holy situations became nicknamed holy shit.
Speaker 2 (01:57):
Holy city, Holy City. And I think this is an
important piece in the story to help people understand this
gang life. I told coach and came up. You know,
I can probably talk about this. I said, Alvin shouldn't
be in the gang because he's I mean, he shouldn't
be on the team because he's fighting people, beating up people.
(02:17):
He was like, no, he's strong, he's good. He's strong.
And I was like, it's toxic, you know. But he's
been coming to practice and he's been training with us.
In the first trip to at we real talk. Were
you afraid of him a little bit?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (02:33):
Yeah, definitely afraid of him.
Speaker 1 (02:35):
You know.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
You know, me see this dude beat people down with
his crew. And I remember we go to Philly and
I sit next to him on the bus. I've seen
he's like this guy, this guy even showing up every day.
And I said, Alvin, you know why you why you?
Speaker 1 (02:50):
Why?
Speaker 2 (02:51):
What's up at all? The fighting? Like beating up people,
you know? And and we wrote, I wrote, he actually
wrote right behind me. So we started to build a
little connection. He's having the seat behind me, and so
we rode in pairs, so he was We started to
build a little connection and we started talking a little bit,
but just like basic stuff, you know what I mean.
And and I sat next to him on the bus
(03:13):
and I said, hey, man, like, why are you fighting?
And he said, man, listen, I have never had a
fight because of me. I've never started a fight. When
I first moved here, me and my brother would jump
by ten people and I just told my brother to
run to get dad. Run. I take it. I take it,
I take it. And he said when they when they
(03:33):
finished jumping him, a guy from across the street walked
up to him and said, listen, this is always gonna
happen when you go out of town. When you leave,
it's gonna happen to your little brother. Unless you help us,
you will never have the help. And Alice said, I
had to make it. Not a bad choice, but a
(03:54):
challenging choice. For myself and my brothers, And so every
fight he had he had to help someone else who
would getting into fights just so he can so he
can always have the protection. His little brother can have
the protection when he's gone.
Speaker 1 (04:12):
All right, here we go breaking down stereotype number seventeen.
In this episode, there is a belief that these kids
get into gangs because quote, they just need a sense
of belonging. There may be some truth to that in
some respects, but that has not been my experience. My experiences,
(04:35):
they join the gangs because they're scared to death getting
their asked.
Speaker 2 (04:40):
It's very not that.
Speaker 1 (04:41):
They want to be part of that. They would much
rather be part of a team or school or nurturing
situation or grass or green or something. But it's all
that's available to them, and if they don't, they often
become the victim of the very gang that they subscribe
allegiance to.
Speaker 2 (05:03):
It is dangerous being in a gang, but it's even
more dangerous not being in a gang.
Speaker 1 (05:09):
So it's just a reality. It's a survival mechanism.
Speaker 2 (05:12):
I say in the film, the big question is not
what college you're going to go to, but what gag
you're going to join? For protection. That's the big question.
Speaker 1 (05:22):
People listening to this need to just let that marinate
a little. When your dream is to eat it's paulty,
or go five miles from your neighborhood just to see
a series tower, and that your reality is not where
you're going to college, what kind of job you're going
to have, but which gang you're going to join. And
(05:44):
then you don't understand after hearing that, and you and
you can't get your arms around that there are people
in our country that simply don't have the same privilege
of freedom to grow as other people in our country.
(06:05):
Doesn't speak badly about anybody else. It just speaks to
the reality of situation of guys like you and where
you grew up.
Speaker 2 (06:15):
Yeah, second, desperate, Yeah, secretary education are one Duncan white man.
He said it. It spoke to me, he said, if
more people look like me, if more people live downtown,
it wouldn't be tolerated.
Speaker 1 (06:32):
Wow, And I guess that's strict. Do you find that truth?
Speaker 2 (06:37):
I find it true, you know. But what I did
say to Alvin was, if you notice, for two months
you haven't been hanging out with those guys. You've been
in practice every day and That just shows that talent
is everywhere, but access and opportunity is not. Alvin Brother
(07:03):
said in the film when they tore down to YMCA,
and that happened often because of funding, he said, I
ran to the streets. I don't care if you white, black, Hispanic, Asian.
There were one hundred and fifty kids at that YMC.
That's where the counselors, the coaches, the mentors were at.
And now it's torn down and there's one hundred and
fifty kids hanging in the street. So it doesn't matter
(07:25):
what color you are. If there's one hundred and fifty
kids hanging out with nothing to do, it's crazy. Stuff's
gonna happen. Yes, you know what I mean. And U
but rowing came and pood ran to the rowing team,
and so you talk about the outlet for two hours,
like what are you run into? Like why are you
showing up to practice every day? Why are you showing
up to rowing every day? You know it's yes, it's
(07:50):
it's an escape.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
And then through the hook of the respite and escape,
little by little, you kids didn't realize what you were
actually gaining, which was experience you wouldn't have ever had
otherwise had in teamwork. And my guess is, I mean,
(08:12):
I've rote a john bowed across the lake before, and
that will wear you out. And my guess is if
you're with other guys trying to go fast, I mean
it's core strength, it's arm strength, it's cardio, it's you know.
So there's both physical and non physical attributes to a
successful role. What are those?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Yeah, I mean, I mean height helps being tall, But
you know, I think the it's it's a lot more
than the physical piece, right, like being along, being flexible
or being strong. But I think the most important attributes
is like for some people, understanding as a follow you
have to learn to be a leader. As a leader,
you have to learn how to.
Speaker 1 (08:54):
Follow because you're all in union.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Because you're all in unison.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
You know.
Speaker 2 (08:58):
I learned in rowing that I cannot do the work
of eight. I have to find eight to do the
work of one. And then we get the job must
gone faster. And it's not about you. It's about the
person who's sitting in front of you and the person
who sits behind you, and the discipline show up every day.
(09:20):
Understanding that the chemistry that you have in the boat
doesn't just happen in the boat, but it's what you
do outside of the boat, when you're asking each other
question is like what keeps you up at night? What
keeps you going personal questions. When Alvin told me that,
I was like, from this day four, I will always
pull for you. You know, when you're willing to get personal,
(09:42):
when you see someone that's working hard and crying out
there and ripping apart their hands and breaking their backs
for each other man, that is something that Alvin always
wanted and was looking for later in the film, and
not to tell the whole story, I start showed up
to his house every morning before school, walking with him
(10:03):
every day to school. He's the best man in my wedding.
You know, that's what sports does, and and that's that's
kind of just like, honestly, what what what we needed?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
You know, we'll be right back. So when you joined
when when when the white boat and the White Lady
(10:38):
and the everybody showed up, you were were you a
freshman or a sophomore?
Speaker 2 (10:42):
Sophomore?
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Your sophomore? So this led to three years of rowing.
How good did y'all get?
Speaker 2 (10:50):
We got good? I mean you know I say this,
we got really good we got really fast. They came
to a point where we lost Preston, who was amazing,
but he said, man that I'm like, I was doing good,
I was learning a lot. But his mom was still
a drug dealer and he said, you know, the streets
(11:12):
were calling. I saw what she was making, you know.
And he was a great accents to the team, and
we lost them. It was Malcolm was the strongest guy
on our team, and his dad was like, no, he
can't be on the team, and I don't want you
doing like you know.
Speaker 1 (11:31):
His dad.
Speaker 2 (11:33):
Brother was hung on a tree in the South and
he just never Malcolm had to sneak to practice. That
just never agreed with him, you know, he just didn't
want him on the team. He was just like, I
don't trust the space, right, I don't trust the space.
And so we had to recruit other kids, right. So
we were always at the same time in the constant state,
(11:55):
me and Alvin and the constant state of rebuilding. And
then we got more competitive and we got a new
coach and we got faster, but I think at the
same time, performance wise, not only preparing to be good,
it was real hard at the same time that we
still had to go back home and we're losing friends,
(12:17):
and we still have to worry about stuff at school.
We had to still worry about the mental peace. And
oh my god, my cousin got shot. They oh Alvin.
Oh man, Man, my cousin just got killed. I can't
go to practice this week, guys, like, you know what,
I got to help my mom work. I got to
miss practice this week. You know, I got a babysit.
My mom got to work with double. We had a
lot of that to deal with. We were act we
(12:39):
were strong, but we had a lot.
Speaker 1 (12:40):
To deal with. Once again, not the same reality as
your competition. So what do you do after you graduate
high school?
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Man, I graduated high school. I've dedicated a year in
my life to full time service with the Mara Corps.
I wanted to do more. I wanted to dedicate you
in my life to my community. And I learned that
from just like there was one rule that coach Victor,
he was the black guy. He had. He said, leave
the pole house better than you found it. And he
(13:20):
said that when I was the captain. I became the
captain of the team.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
By the way, football coaches said that about the locker room.
So leave the locker room better than you found it.
Don't believe your yes. Yes? And I used to stand
another very valuable left.
Speaker 2 (13:33):
Yes. I used to step over it all the time.
I step over He said, no, you leave the bow
house better than you found it, even if you didn't
make the mess. And I would say, well, how does
that teach responsibility to the person who was here before us?
He was like, in our poll house, you leave it
better than you found it, even if we didn't make
the mess, because it makes it easier for the next group.
And he's like, yo, you'll get it. And what I learned.
(13:53):
It's like man like, some people will say, I have
nothing to do with what those black kids were doing,
you know when the cops beat them up. Oh, I
had nothing to do with what happened in the South
two hundred years ago. You know. I have nothing to
do with kids who have mental health issues. I have
my own kids to worry about. We step over it.
But we benefit from this country, and so we can
(14:14):
leave it better than we found it, even if we
didn't make the mess. It makes it easier for the
next generation.
Speaker 1 (14:20):
All right, that's awesome. Say it again.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
If we can leave this country, our community this world
better than we found it. Even if we didn't make
the mess. It makes it easier for the next generation.
Speaker 1 (14:34):
Do you love this country?
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I love this country.
Speaker 1 (14:36):
How do you feel when you watch people kneel during
the national anthem as a black man?
Speaker 2 (14:41):
As a black man, I understand because this country. I
love this country.
Speaker 1 (14:46):
But that's disrespectful.
Speaker 2 (14:47):
It's not disrespectful to me. Here's why, because, oh.
Speaker 1 (14:50):
But it is disrespectful because everybody says it is. Yeah,
talk to me about it. Talk talk to me about it.
I want you to explain it to me.
Speaker 2 (15:01):
I want you I explained it this way. It's a
little bit of what I said earlier. I don't know
if I would have thought this way if I didn't
have the interaction with the kids that became my friends,
the white private school kids. The moment that I was
walking from the boat house in the white neighborhood with
my friends and the cops came and they looked at me,
(15:23):
opened my book back and they emptied. I was like,
what are you doing in this neighborhood. They used to
happen to me all the time in my neighborhood, and
I would say to myself, okay, because it's a bad neighborhood,
it said, challenging, challenging neighborhood. So of course, like they're
going to look through my stuff because people got guns.
I didn't think about that as a kid. And then
when I was in this good neighborhood, what it was,
(15:44):
no violence, it still happened to me. And that's when
again I said to myself, like man, like I volunteer.
I'm the captain of my team. I passed the Constitution test,
I know the Declaration of Independence, I know the Preamble.
I've never been since spendings for school, never got in trouble.
And then when I ask my friends did this happen
to them, the white private school kids, they said, it
(16:06):
have never happened. And I realized, I said, you know,
I went to a baseball game and I sung the
national anthems with goosebumps in my arms. And when I
ask other people who don't look like me that they
didn't experience what I experienced with who I consider an
American hero, it made me feel like I was living
(16:26):
in a certificant in America. And it doesn't mean that
people who grew up like me are disrespecting it. We're
trying to help people don't understand.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
So who is your American hero?
Speaker 2 (16:36):
My American hero is it's the grandma's, it's the pastors,
it's the educators, it's the normal people who are trying
to just leave the boat house better than they found.
Speaker 1 (16:48):
It is George Washington worthy of our price?
Speaker 2 (16:59):
I don't look at it. I don't. I don't know
if I like it that way.
Speaker 1 (17:03):
I without them, we don't have a country.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
We don't.
Speaker 1 (17:08):
He also owned slaves. Yep, it was also two hundred
and whatever sixty years ago. How do we how do
we balance that from a from a black dude from
the West side of Chicago that admittedly made friends with
(17:30):
white kids from the nice part of town. You have
a very unique perspective. Yeah, so I think that. I
will tell you so many especially in the South, but
so many white folks. Again it's it's it's like the
it's like the white privileged thing. They do want to understand,
(17:55):
but they also are very off put by the degredation
of people that we see as founding fathers because two
hundred and fifty years ago they were slave owners. And
people have a hard time balancing, you know, how do
I check myself and learn and be real and become
(18:24):
present and cognizant with the reality of the plight of
a lot of black folks from inner cities, but also
not not allow what I do believe a positive heritage
from the people who found our country left us. How
(18:46):
do I balance it?
Speaker 2 (18:49):
It's a hard balance, you know. And to be honest,
I think I'm still working on that. But Rowan and
people may disagree agree with me, like Rowan taught me,
you know, and rowing you row forward by looking in
the opposite direction. That is so I learned that it's
(19:11):
okay to look back as long as you keep pushing forward.
It's been a trouble pass, you know. And it's o
Kate acknowledge that these things happen, and there are generations
of trauma because some of it. But you have to
keep pushing forward.
Speaker 1 (19:35):
So AmeriCorps for two years. That's cool. But I read you, Uh,
you learned to cook a little bit somewhere. Where'd you
where'd you go? You went to culinary school or something? Wrong? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:47):
I went to look corder on blue and where I
started off in Chicago and then raised a little bit
of money to take some lessons at the QUARTERA on
Blue England, which was amazing. And London, London, England, that's.
Speaker 1 (20:03):
One of my favorite cities. Oh that's such a good London.
So you you you went to culinary school in London.
Speaker 2 (20:10):
Yeah, and the way you do.
Speaker 1 (20:12):
You dreamed to see Sears Tower five blocks away and
now you're cooking.
Speaker 2 (20:17):
Well, I have to tell you this, and I think,
you know, it's it's awesome to have, like great like
those entrepreneurship classes really helped. But clonary was introduced to
our high school for anyone who wants allowed to cook.
But I only went because you know, we didn't have
a ton of food. So I was like, yeah, yeah,
you get to eat what you cook. So and I
realized I was really good at it. And I was
like volunteering on the weekends and not only volunteering on
(20:42):
on the weekends, like the Hilton O'Hare, Like our teacher
really hooked use with some really great internships and so
I was rolling and doing some internships and racing too
and doing a lot. And then when I went to
the Quarter and Blue, I was like, man, I got
how do I pay for this? And I was like,
can I need a plan? You know? And and what
I decided to do is I got a job at
the Starbucks in Little Italy, which is one of the
(21:05):
wealthiest neighborhoods in Chicago. And that's what all the men
goes into, you know, lawyers, doctors, everyone. And so I'm
there and I'm meeting all these folks and I'm like, hey,
my name is Roche. Every now and then, my coffee's
on you. And they said, oh, if you ever need
a dentist.
Speaker 1 (21:21):
I got you.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
If you need a doctor, I got you. If you
need a lawyer, I got you. And I was like, yeah, yeah,
how's your family doing? And so I went up. I
went to this restaurant called Blackbird. It's a French restaurant.
I talk about it in my book, and I said,
can I work? You know, chef Paul Kahn just won
the James Spirit Award and I worked for free. Can
actually got me hooked there and he was like yeah.
(21:41):
I was like, I'm just cutting mushrooms, I'm cutting carrots,
simple stuff. Best French restaurant in Chicago. I go to
my school and I asked them to help me make
some business cards and I found five good guys from
my class. I go to Starbucks every day. I make
these cards. I start putting in sleeves of the starbus comings.
(22:02):
That's hilarious and CATERI families, couples and everyone else. And
they say. Everyone was like, you want to cook? You
a good chef. I was like, yeah, I go to
the Quarter Blue and I work at Blackbird. You work
at Blackbird. I didn't tell I was cutting onions for free.
I said, yeah, I work at Blackbird. And I started
getting a lot of business and I was making money
and I was paying these guys at school ten dollars
(22:24):
an hour and I was making some dough and so
that's how I was able to pay for that trip.
And so from there I got a job. And I
say that to say that after the Quarter on Blue,
this guy named Bobby, this guy named Jeff linked me
up with this guy named Bobby. Bobby was head of
hospitality and cooking for the World Wrestling Entertainment WWE with
(22:47):
John Cena, the Rock, all these guys. And he was like,
and I go for a job. I tell him my
story about intern for free at a sport where there
are no cheerleaders, they're no busload of fans, but it's
rowing the Starbucks story, the BlackBerry story, and he said,
because of what you've done as a sixteen, seventeen, eighteen
(23:09):
eighty year old kid is the reason why you have
the dream job today. And that's what I always tell
young kids. What you do today, what you do now,
matters for your future.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
Man, that is a long way from a boiling water
fot pull of chitlings laying as a long way away.
So then then you like her cooking? It did where else?
Speaker 2 (23:33):
Oh Wanner broa WB So I was doing like cooking
on food sets. Yeah, we're wrestling entertainment the whole thing. Yeah,
I'm doing catering.
Speaker 1 (23:41):
And like, so, I mean, you reaching a dream and
then you say, you know what, I love this, This
is great. But I'm called.
Speaker 2 (23:49):
That happened during that Chipotle story. When they asked me,
you got to tell these kids your story you're here,
I was like no. When I went home that night
after thinking about that kid, I am not Everyone faces
Goliath in their youth. I didn't deal with my trauma.
I just buried it and I talked about it. Is
(24:09):
you buried it alive. It's always there when you don't
deal with it. My mom being a drug addict, not
saying the word dat to day in my life, teacher
telling me I was gonna die before I was eighteen,
fell in the eighth grade. All that stuff came back
when I went home that night in my swinking New
York apartment, and I had a moment like when hope
(24:33):
and the ability to change the world, Like that feeling
that comes upon you is not always present, but when
it's there, how do you take that moment and go
with it? It was almost like when you was a
kid at night and you watch a commercial at like
three o'clock in the morning and it says feet these
starving kids in Africa, or or be the abused dogs. Yah, yeah, yeah,
(25:00):
and then the numbers in the bottom. He's like, oh
my god, I gotta do something and do something, and
then your show comes back on. You start laughing, you
fall asleep, you wake up, you gotta go to work,
and you forget about everything that you just saw the
night before, right, And I had those moments every time
I went to church. So I went to a gallap
I went to an event where I was say, I
gotta do something, and then I got distracted by the
need and I fell asleep on the knee. I forgot
(25:21):
about it, and I didn't want that to happen, because
that's your pole. A story just stuck with me, and
that's when I started writing my first sentence. It didn't
it didn't start off that way. First sentence of my
mom was a drug addict, and I was like, gosh.
And that's when I wrote the story of the fan Wow.
And that's when I started writing my book no On.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
And I get your you know, starting to write the book,
but you don't have anything. Nobody really knows your story.
And you start working yourself out of your cooking career
and into your current I don't know what you would
call it. I guess nonprofit profit career. I guess, yeah.
(26:08):
So you know what was? How did you how? And why?
What precipitated you walking away?
Speaker 2 (26:22):
I call it, like you know, I returned home to
the place that gave to me. I didn't move back
to Chicago first. I actually started going back, which is
important to the story. I decided I can. I would
volunteer with that group at the school it's a charter school,
(26:42):
and start working with them and giving them the same
answers that was given to me. And then I went
to another school called Eastside Community High School, and I
was like, man, these kids need rowing, you know. And
so that's when I was like, I called up up
to and I was like, hey, I want I need
rowing machines. I need to get keep as called up.
(27:04):
Can I need some rowing machines. I want to teach
kids how to row. And so I started rowing program
while still slowly cooking, working my way out of this job.
And I'm still writing and.
Speaker 1 (27:17):
They started rowing team. You're writing, You're still cooking, so
you're really transition transition.
Speaker 2 (27:22):
And eventually I stopped cooking because more people was like,
our Shay come to my school and he's getting paid
like one hundred dollars to speak out of school, one
hundred and fifty dollars. But that was a lot for
me to just to tell you the story, you know,
and people start hearing. And then someone said, hey, I
want you to speak at the US Rowing Convention, and
that's when I exploded. People are like, oh my god,
this dude got a story, like you got to come
(27:45):
to my bow house and help me, help me bring
people together. We are a programm in a white community,
but we need to we want to engage the black community.
Speaker 1 (27:53):
How do we do?
Speaker 2 (27:53):
How do we do? How do we go in there?
Speaker 1 (27:55):
What do we do?
Speaker 2 (27:55):
You know? And and so I started helping in that area,
and then I'm writing my book at the same time.
And it's good because I forgot a lot of the
water terms and so being around that it helped me
to write.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Again. That's interesting because probably as you're writing, you're reliving.
You're reliving, and as you're teaching, it's helping your writing. Yes,
I mean, it's the whole thing is kind of organically marinating.
Speaker 2 (28:26):
Yep, marinating. And I finished the book. I shop it
to eight editors and publishers. They all said, no, you
didn't win gold, didn't win a championship, You're not a writer,
and that a lot of no's, And so I was like,
I'm going to self publish it. I'm going to hustle.
I was a hustlers, a self.
Speaker 1 (28:47):
Published Yeah, it's the same guy that was putting business
cards inside the I have no doubt that you were
going to hustle it up.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
And so I'm dropping books off everywhere, Meilon books to everyone,
books in the Olympics, like sending the books to schools.
Blah blah blah, and I'm getting all these calls we
love your story, we love your story, we love your story.
And they got into the hands of Mary Mazio, filmmaker
Olympic Rower, who said, I want to turn this book
into a documentary. My friend Gret Hill, I want to
(29:17):
bring them in as a producer, and Gret Hill got
Dwayne Wade and they got calm and involved, and the
buzz was picking up. Or Shade not only wrote this
self published book and during this film, but he's doing
work with kids who grew up just like he did.
And the kids are going to college and they'll come speak.
That's when the big publishing house, Macmillan, was like, we
(29:40):
read your story, we want to do it. We want
your book, and we want to get it out to
a broader audience. And they did, and I started seeing
the people the books are winning awards, and I saw
the people who I pitched the book for retweeting. And
so from there the film got out and people loved it.
(30:01):
It was amazing, It changed lives. He brought in more
money to help the foundation, which gave.
Speaker 1 (30:06):
You now the platform, gave you actually work.
Speaker 2 (30:09):
The found nine cities later and good news this year
our Shae Cooper will be going to South Africa and
the Bahamas to help launch a new Prime program.
Speaker 1 (30:19):
That is so cool, that is fantastic. We'll be right back. Incredibly.
Archey's book, A Most Beautiful Thing was then turned into
a great documentary by Dwayne Wade, Grant Hill, and Common,
(30:43):
and he and his high school crew members did something
pretty unusual during the filming. You guys have a uh
have a reunion road and uh and if I get
this right up, will let you tell, but I'll just
lead it in. I think one of your teammates had
an ankle monitor or the other jail and the cops
(31:06):
were not part of their reality. And then you and
your brilliant bright by decided, Yeah, let's row with cops.
Talk about it. It's so cool.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah. You know, while we was filming, there was two
things that stuck out to me. First was the mom said,
there's two fears they have. My black sun interaction in
a different neighborhood in our community, my son interaction with
white police. And I was like me, being a person
who loved to preach, hope and go after things, I said,
(31:42):
what can I do to reduce the fears of my moms.
I know I'm helping with these communities, but I gotta
do something about the other fear. And I know that
there's some things in this world. I learned from Rowing.
There's some things in this world you won't see unless
you do it. And I said, I I talked about
(32:02):
that that quote that Rowin taught me that I can't
do the work of eight, but I need eight people
to do the work of one, and we get that
much faster. In our community, there are black activists working
with educators, preachers, business owners and grandmothers and politicians. But
(32:22):
why not the cops because they have to work there
every single day, seven people pulling the eight. You'll move,
but you won't. It won't move effectively unless the eight
is moving. And so and the Costs is one of
the eight, and they're in our community. And and so
(32:44):
I told the guys, I was like, listen, I think
I'm uh want to get cops to Row. And they
were like, yeah, yeah, we can roll against them. The
boys can be over here and our people can be
over there.
Speaker 1 (32:55):
I was like no, no, no, no, no no no.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
I said, you know, as a teacher, you will always
forget some of your students but as a student, you'll
never forget your teacher, and we have our opportunity to
be a teacher, to teach them something about us, about
this sport and bring them to the same water where
we didn't get along at first, where we literally hate
each other, and somehow it became a place of healing.
(33:24):
And to be real with you, I made that decision
based on building the bridge. They made the decision based
on survival. If we interact with them and they get
to learn our teenage, known about our teenagers who where
they hook and sag their pants, but great kids, that
maybe it will change something for them. And I found
(33:47):
four white cops and man, it wasn't It was awkward
at first, it was very awkward. But in order to
have alignment, you have to readjust the lands. You have
to be able to talk to each other, and to
move anywhere in the boat, you have to be moving
to each other. To move anywhere in this world, you
(34:08):
have to be moving together. And I told my story
and I wanted to hear their story. But I have
to say this because it's not in the film, it's
not in the book, it's not it's not anywhere. There's
a scene where the guys were rolling with their kids.
Did you know kids how to row? Before that scene?
After that scene, we was going to do the scene
(34:29):
with the cops, but the cops came with some of
their kids. And what broke the awkwardness is that when
the cops kids and the guys kids all got in
the tanks and they were pulling and they were having
fun and they were talking and it wasn't a care
or disconnect in the world, and it was a learning
opportunity for all the adults who have in their heads
(34:53):
this is the way it's supposed to be. Oh, this
is our brotherhood and NAI's debro. There was none of that.
Speaker 3 (34:58):
No, Actually, the kids in the boat is the way
it's supposed to be. Yes, Yes, when the kids in
the boat was the way it's supposed to be, and
everyone was like, dang, like this is the way it's
supposed to be. Like they taught us, they didn't even know.
And that's when we all got in the boat and
I was coaching. We invited the Olympic coach out and
(35:20):
we started moving together and we had conversations that were
uncomfortable but was amazing, And the most powerful part was
Alvin who was my best man at the Why and
who was fighting? Who searched four our four years in
jail later on in life because he shot at someone
who beat up his sister, officer Lou. Also, you didn't
(35:44):
even know how to swim. We didn't even know it.
And he's scared.
Speaker 1 (35:49):
And why didn't know how to swim?
Speaker 2 (35:50):
He didn't know how to swim?
Speaker 1 (35:52):
You mean you mean you mean that happened? That happened. Well,
there's another stereotype just destroyed by you.
Speaker 2 (36:04):
Up and I heard Alvin say sits Hall, like I
got you. Here's this guy who's done four years. There's
this copy in front of him that has a lot
of fear, and Al's like, dude, I've been here, I
got you. And ever since that day, the way both
of them gravitated towards each other was something I have
(36:27):
never seen. This unlikely lifeboat changed these guys life.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
There's a guy in Las Vegas named John Ponder, twenty
year criminal from Brooklyn who ended up finally going to
the federal PENITENTIARYA because he robbed a bunch of banks
and through a long series of circumstances and what he
(36:55):
would tell you or blessings, he's come out, and he
started a re entry program. And the recidivism rate that
his organization experiences is like ten percent against a national
average of somewhere around eighty percent. Those numbers are close,
but the point is unbelievable successful. And you know what
(37:17):
his success he attributes to is that the returning citizens
from jail that are paroles are, like lots of these organizations,
work life skills, learn how to do internet and email,
and learn how to get a job and go on
an interview. The difference with his is each one of
(37:38):
those guys are matched with a Las Vegas Police Department
man or woman at THEI whatever. And what John said
that I've never forgotten to me is what happens is
the cop starts seeing the convicts without the orange jumpsuit on,
(37:59):
and the convict start seeing the cops without the badge on.
And when the jumpsuit and the badge is erased, all
you have are two people. And I gotta believe when
Alvin and the cops and the whole mixed up crew
was going on, the cops weren't didn't have a gun
(38:19):
or badge on, right, and through rowing, they got to
just see each other's human beings.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
And that's what Macco said in the film. He said,
once they got on those uniforms, you know it was cool.
They go back home to families and wives and kids,
and they human beings and they saw us the same.
And I would say the most powerful moment they have
volunteered with me. They helped me bring growing back to
the high school. I was in California and they showed
(38:50):
up to help. I was just at Northwestern University and
the other showed up to help like they've been there.
But the most powerful moment is that we filmed this
in twenty eighteen twenty when George Floyd was murdered. We
have this group chat because we all chatted all the time.
Speaker 1 (39:04):
You mean the road, your rogue guy and the cops, because.
Speaker 2 (39:09):
We raced together, because we won team We have one
eight we raced together goes to the neighborhood. And the
beauty of that when we raced together in July to
have a tent of like their colleagues and their kids
and all boys from the neighborhood and and and all
together and cheering us on. And then you hear the
guys from neighborhood tell the cause, say this is my son,
like he's so good man. Sometimes you have bad days,
(39:31):
but he's great, like, you know, the it was just
just cool.
Speaker 1 (39:34):
It was cool.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
And he was making jokes like, hey, the cops get
one the guys, Hey, where does why?
Speaker 1 (39:38):
I know you always wear white?
Speaker 2 (39:39):
Started. It was all these jokes, right, and.
Speaker 1 (39:42):
Like, but that's when race doesn't matten, when you can
joke about it with it really doesn't.
Speaker 2 (39:49):
Yeah, it was It was awesome. The powerful moment was
George Floyd was murdered and I started messaging with the guys,
and right George Froy's murdered, we did a top a
a segment on the Today Show and with those guys,
and one of the cops said, he said, when George
Floyd was murdered, I was working downtown on the protest
(40:13):
and had a ton of bricks thrown at me. And
he said, I realized that day, through our relationship, that
I can go home and take my uniform off, but
you can never take your black skin off. And I said,
thank you for saying that. How do you have that
conversation with your colleagues? And that opened the door for
(40:39):
some really courageous conversations with us, and that was always
a turning point in a good way, because we always
had a mission. One mission of mine is to keep
kids safe, both of us, both groups. And there was
times of like, well you need to see this is
(40:59):
the way I see. You don't understand when the grandma
calls and say he has a blue sweater. You see
your kid's a blue sweater, and grandma got robbed and
grandma got hurt. We have to make a decision to
take all three, you know what I mean, Like you're
helping us to understand, but also telling them, hey man,
Alvin joined the game because he had to help others,
and they were like, oh my god. He didn't make
bad choices. He made tough choices, Like the conversations were
(41:20):
conversations that I can't have at a protest. But once
I invited him to my boat, my barbecue because they
work in our neighborhood eight hours a day and they
need to learn our names, and I want them to
hear my story and I want to hear their story.
That's when we started to connect. So the way you
(41:43):
mean when you're just human beings, we just human beings.
And so the mistake we make in our country is
that we do too much calling out and no calling in.
Speaker 1 (41:57):
And you yeah, you you.
Speaker 2 (42:00):
But it reminds me of Valvin. If I would have
saw him the first time it was like, hey, you
don't need to be on this team, he would have
socked me in a jaw. But I called him in.
I set next him on the boat. I sat next
to him on the machine, and I said in my book,
what I loved about Ken, our coached is Jewish guy,
University of Pennsylvania. What he done differently is that my
(42:24):
relationship in school with security guards or teachers that I
only heard from them when I was doing wrong, talking
at me, and then when I had a bad day,
they was like, tell me, what's the problem, what's going
on at home? I'm not telling you right. But Ken
made deposits. When you go to a bank and make
a deposit, you can't get it. You know, you get
(42:45):
a withdrawal, but you can't get a withdraw if you
don't make deposits. And so when you have coaches and
people making deposits in your life, and when you ask
what's the problem, you will always get a withdrawal. And
so I learned to call in. I learned to make
deposits in cops light. So when I say, hey, man,
tell me about George Floyd, I always get withdrawal because
(43:08):
I'm making deposits.
Speaker 1 (43:14):
We'll be right back if we're ever going to ail.
So much of what divides us as a country, which
(43:34):
is not just racial, it's racial, it's political, it's faith based,
it's abortion, it's all of it, right, But what scares
me so much is that wokeness cancel culture and political correctness.
It makes us really afraid to be willing to talk
(43:56):
because I might say something that is a talking point
for one group or another, and then you automatically sum
me up and assume you know exactly who I am,
what I think, where I'm from, and I what's you know?
And in tool we break down those barriers and talk
(44:16):
like white cops and black row people? What a what
a row people called oxman or something?
Speaker 2 (44:26):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (44:26):
There it is row people, right. But what I'm saying
is is that is that I'm so I am so
anti cancel culture, woke this political that not because I
(44:48):
don't think there's a need for us to watch our
tongues and how we approach one another, because we do,
but because I think with the pendulum has swung so
far in our culture now that it is prohibiting people
that aren't just like each other from simple having simply
having real civil conversations about stuff that matters. And without that,
(45:09):
we're never going to be able to learn the humanity
about one another and grow. And your story illustrates that
when those barriers are removed, the phenomenal growth that can
take place. So what are you doing now? Man?
Speaker 2 (45:28):
I have a national foundation what's it called a Most
Beautiful Thing inclusion fun In the last year and a half,
we introduced two thousand kids of colors of this what
if rowing in what cities and Baltimore, DC, Chicago, Newburgh,
New York, Waco, Texas, Stockton, California, Philadelphia, Newark, New Jersey.
Speaker 1 (45:53):
Y'all going to screw up Rowland. Y'all go into y'all
gonna end up making rowing look a whole lot different.
Speaker 2 (46:03):
Yeah, you know, I was it's good. You know, someone
told me in the interview, they say, so our share,
it's amazing, you're changing the face of rowing, And I
was like, you know what. I what I told them
is like, you know what, though I don't want to
change the face of rowing, I want to add new
faces to rowing and beautiful. It's a beautiful thing because
(46:25):
the history of sports have told us.
Speaker 1 (46:27):
That you're the Serena Williams of rowing. Man Man, and
you know, I A.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
I don't want to do so much more when I
roll in my neighborhood Bill, just like when people watch
your yeah you know, or where I grew up. I
don't want people to say that's the author, that's the chef,
or that's the rower.
Speaker 1 (46:48):
You also don't want to be the black rower. Yeah, no,
you don't want to do that.
Speaker 2 (46:52):
Yeah, but I want people to say, you know what,
that dude, that's the hope for my community, that's the
hope for our kids. When I think of some of
the greatest leaders like MLK, I don't think about his
career as an educated preacher, but I think about the
hope that he runs in his country. And I think
about Harriet Tubman. I don't think about a career as
a union spy, but the freedom that she brung to
(47:13):
so many people who look like me or even Gandhi.
I don't say, oh, the attorney, but the piece that
he brought to so many villages.
Speaker 1 (47:20):
Can I ask you a question, I hear what you're
what you're saying, and I think it's cool and you
and you evoked Harriet Tubman and MLK and Gandhi all
people that are black and brown. Can you evoke a
would you, in just natural conversation evoke a white hero?
Speaker 2 (47:46):
Yeah, I was gonna say about the Teresa. I was
gonna say about the Teresa next.
Speaker 1 (47:50):
All right, what about it? What about a white male? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (47:55):
Absolutely, man. I mean I think that you hit the
are in white savior, right. I think that we all
have the ability to be heroes. And I think that
Ken was a hero and can now part that's the
(48:16):
guy who team Bob Mouseikowski who started a baseball team program.
They were heroes. I think that sometimes where it gets
people should never take away the work that the work
and the love that a white man had brung to
a neighborhood of folks who don't look like him. I
(48:38):
think what people, well the right people will say, well,
I've been doing this in this neighborhood and I don't
get the media attention that that person got because it's different,
and it's ways to address that. But we should also
take away the work that Can and other men like
(49:00):
you have done and at at the moments, I lost
sight of that. But it changed when I spoke to
Seattle scholars and this white dude said, I have this
was recent. I have sixty white men on my team,
and I'm working to change that. But forty of these
(49:24):
guys said they're here because of r Sha Cooper.
Speaker 1 (49:28):
Okay, what that is perfect, And what I'm getting to
is you naturally evoked heroes. And you said m O.
King and U Joundee and yeah, all right, And I
think if I'm sitting asking a white guy, he's gonna say,
(49:50):
fix some white people. It's just natural, right, I mean,
if a white dude, yeah, I mean maybe it's I
don't know. If it's baseball, it's Babe Ruth. Yeah. Who
would be your hero in baseball?
Speaker 2 (50:02):
Yeah, Jackie Robinson?
Speaker 1 (50:04):
Right, Okay. If it's football, maybe Joe Montana. Who's yours?
Speaker 2 (50:11):
Oh wow, Well you know that's for me. It's a
Chicago guys.
Speaker 1 (50:15):
I was going to say, I was thinking's Walter.
Speaker 2 (50:17):
Yeah, I was gonna yeah, Yeah, it's somebody O waltsa
Paytony why not?
Speaker 1 (50:20):
Why not man? Why not buckets? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (50:24):
He loved the film, by the way.
Speaker 1 (50:26):
Okay, but you see my point.
Speaker 2 (50:28):
I see your point.
Speaker 1 (50:29):
You know where we got to get where white people
and black people don't even consider race when they think
about their heroes. But we don't get there until we
can have the conversations. And we don't get there until
people are not surprised when they see black kids rowing.
Speaker 2 (50:52):
Yeah wow wow.
Speaker 1 (50:57):
And you're part of that solution. Your life is part
of that solution. I mean what Baltimore, DC, all that stuff.
I mean, that is just so cool. But we can't
get there unless we can talk and figure out each
other's humanity.
Speaker 2 (51:14):
Right right, I have to say this last thing. I mean,
if whatever, I won't know how much time we have.
I got a call from a library and he said,
we bought three hundred books we donated to a school
and the school has just seen your movie Ourshae Cooper.
You need to come here, beautiful. I said, okay, okay,
(51:35):
this was going six months ago. I said okay, okay,
and they said, no, we need you to come. I said, okay,
where where do I need to come? They said, Alliance, Ohio.
Where Alliance, Ohio.
Speaker 1 (51:46):
I was like, that's got to be in the middle
of note.
Speaker 2 (51:48):
I was like, where is that? And they said, you
got to fly to Pittsburgh and drive an hour and
a half into Alliance, Ohio. Fly to Pittsburgh, pick up
my buddy Matt. From Pittsburgh. We drive to Alliance Ohigh
five minutes left in the GPS, and it's Confederate flex everywhere.
I'm like where, man, I go to a U turn,
(52:10):
you know, and so you know, I go into the
school and I'm thinking.
Speaker 1 (52:18):
Of my head driving school, thinking do these folks look
like I know, you know what?
Speaker 2 (52:22):
When he said I need you, they need you, I
was thinking in my head that they were kids who
looked like me. Because he's like, oh, they.
Speaker 1 (52:28):
Got to you know, they got to meet I know
where you're going. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (52:31):
Yeah. And I walk into the school, don't see a
kid that looks like me, but they would cheer me
on like I was Lebron James.
Speaker 1 (52:42):
Man. Was it as white as your high school was black?
Speaker 2 (52:46):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (52:46):
That white? Yes? Like white white white?
Speaker 2 (52:49):
I mean like white kids have never heard of rowing
white And they were.
Speaker 1 (52:53):
Like white kids never heard about country.
Speaker 2 (52:57):
Country man and the first kid. I have these kids
messages on my phone from Instagram because they have the
best messages I've ever seend. I've received so many amazing messages.
The first kid stood up and said, Bill, thank you
for your story because I have unlearned everything that my
(53:19):
parents taught me about people who look like you. I
couldn't even finish the rest. Man, I was like, the
teachers will tell you. I stood back, like I couldn't
even answer other questions because I couldn't get past that.
That's when I knew I was making an impact when
I see kids who look like me and said, Hey,
you spoke at my school three years ago. Now I'm
(53:40):
ruining at cal Berkeley.
Speaker 1 (53:41):
You know.
Speaker 2 (53:41):
Now I'm ruining at this college. Like I knew, but
I didn't really understand it until like this kid who
walked into the boat house was like, I mean there's launcher.
Was like, I'm not doing that's no one looked like me, Like.
I just didn't understand until that day that man, like, Wow,
(54:02):
when you act being on yourself your career, man, like,
true change happens, you know what I mean? And man,
it's I realize at the same time that the hope
I was given because we all have kept I've received
hope at some point in our lives. The problem is
that we keep it. It was never minded to keep,
(54:25):
but to also give. And I realized it's all about
the hope you give.
Speaker 1 (54:33):
From stepping over pools of blood running from gunshots that
was so monotonous that it was no more noticeable than
the clicking of a fan in his apartment all the
way to Rule, Ohio, where a white kid thanks you
(54:55):
for changing his perspective of people that look like you
income from places like you learned all from the bottom
of a boat. What a story, bro, And you're still involved, Yeah,
not quitting. Let me ask something. Somebody wants to start
(55:17):
a row team in their city. Can they call on you?
Speaker 2 (55:20):
They can call on me. We're ready to find you. Hey,
they can find me rsha Cooper dot com. My email
is there, our work, our articles on what we've done,
and we'll come with our team. We'll check it out
and then we'll introduce them to wellness.
Speaker 1 (55:34):
What if somebody wants you to come speak to their
organization and tell them about that same.
Speaker 2 (55:38):
Thing, same thing? Hit me up. My email is there.
I always respond and I love to come speak.
Speaker 1 (55:45):
My brother. I can't thank you enough for joining me
today and sharing your story and your wisdom. And you
know there's some questions I asked with specific intent, and
some things I said that I really just trying to
get the listeners to to think a little deeper and
(56:09):
maybe a little different about some of the realities of
our world. But you're a hero man, and you are
just a normal guy who's done extraordinary things. And I
know you're an inspiration to a lot of people, but
you're an inspiration to me because if there's more normal
folks like you in this world, just filling the needs
(56:30):
in our communities, we can fix a lot of what
else is an army of you would change everything. And
I just I can't thank you enough, and I can't
tell you out how much I've enjoyed being with you.
Speaker 2 (56:43):
Thank you too. And I have to say that I
didn't know many years ago, when I was sitting in
my couch watching the trailer to Undefeated, that I'll be
sitting here across from you well dreams of still being eliminated.
Speaker 1 (56:55):
We're both dudes and never expected to be here. Through
God's grace, we are and hopefully some people got some
inspiration from conversation. Thank you, thank you, and thank you
(57:16):
for joining us this week. If our Shay or another
guest has inspired you in general or better yet to
take action. Please let us know how I'd love to
hear about it. You can write me anytime at Bill
at normalfolks dot us. And if you enjoyed this episode,
subscribe to the podcast, rate it and review it, share
it with friends and on social The things that will
(57:38):
help grow an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'll see you next week.
Host
Bill Courtney
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