February 18, 2025 • 47 mins
While 94.6% of kidney donors give them to someone they know, Sam Fledderjohann felt called to give a kidney to anyone who needed it. Her being what is called an “altruistic donor” enabled a whole chain of kidney donations to be unlocked, resulting in 20 transplant surgeries over 2 days that saved the lives of 10 recipients!
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're watching a video that says we're gonna cut your
body open.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Well, they're cartoon characters.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
What's that happen?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
They're cartoon characters.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Matter, it's still your body. And you're gonna be down
for two weeks. You're going to have to be away
from work, and somebody's gonna have to take care of you,
and you're gonna have to go through all of this
for someone that you have never met, don't know, don't love,
or don't care about right now.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Okay, but yet you're down for three weeks. You're down.
Somebody gets their life back.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, but you're giving up so much of your life.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
They're getting their life back.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
How is that?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
How is that comparable? How is that comparable? I just
somebody's child.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
What getting your kidney taken out?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Worth it? I do it? If I had if I
had five more, I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach an
inner city Memphis. And somehow that last part led to
an oscar for the film about our team. That movie
is called undefeated, y'all. I believe our country's problems will
(01:26):
never be solved by a bunch of fancy people and
nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on
CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks.
That's us, just you and me deciding, Hey, you know what,
maybe I can help. That's exactly what Sam Fletterjohn, the
(01:48):
voice you just heard, has done. Sam donated her kidney
to a complete stranger, and because she was what they
call an altruistic donor, it enabled an entire chain of
kidney donations to be unlocked, which ultimately meant that ten
(02:10):
people who needed kidneys got them and are alive because
of her. I cannot wait for you to meet Sam
right after these brief messages from our general sponsors. Samantha Fletter,
(02:41):
y'all be a good guy. And it's your last name.
I'm a spell it F L E D D E
R j O h A N N flutter John Fletter John.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Where I come from, that is normal.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
We're all over what is the what? What's what? What
is that is that? Sweetish? Well?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
It's German. I didn't choose it. I'm married into it.
It's German and it's they are all over in our
small town.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
When I hear a name like that, I picture your
husband looks like a viking or a lumber giant. Fletter John.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
My husband's like five eight.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Okay, well I'm misread there, he did. But welcome, Welcome
to Memphis.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
From where do you hail? Sam?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
We are from a small farm town in Ohio, New Bremen.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And your your husband, mister fletter John, is a farmer.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
He farms.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, that's awesome. So did you grow up there in.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
That Yep, I grew up in the area, so it's
everything's so small. So if you grew up there, it's
like four different towns because, got it.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, that's where you grew up. Yes, so do you
You just got to Memphis last night?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
We did well yesterday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
What'd y'all do?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
We ate and ate.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Everything you can do in Memphis is eat and eat.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
So we walked down Beale Street and found some some barbecue,
and then we made our way over to Elbows's house Graceland. Yeah,
we didn't do the tour, but we just looked at
everything from the outside, saw the planes, and then we
came back and ate again.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
We did.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Where'd you get the where'd you barbecue? Do you remember
the place?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Some kind of pig, dirty pig, mad pig pig won. Yeah,
it won the twenty twenty three May barbecue thing.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Possibly pig and whistle.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Okay, okay, yeah it was. And you know, the streets
are pretty empty right now because it's crazy cold, and
where do we go it? Yeah, they said it different
than we were saying it, but we ate there and
then we picked up a Grizzly game last night. Cool,
we could walk over there. A Grizzly game by a landslide.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, the Grizzly game. Fun. Yeah, it was good time.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
We had a good time. That was just a random thing.
We're in Memphis.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Let's go Yeah, well, good Welcome to our fair s.
Usually when we introduce guests, we will say Sam Fletter
John with an organization. All we're doing tonight today is saying, hey,
Sam Fletter John Dash no organization, no organization. But your
(05:17):
story may be one of the most inspirational, uplifting examples
of kindness, empathy, and giving that I think I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Thank you for saying that It's true.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Thank you. I genuinely feel like I'm in the presence
of just one of the finest people I've ever read about,
and I cannot wait to dive in to your story.
Before we do, I have a lot of personal connections
to your story in odd ways. So as you tell
your story, I will anecdotally say to you saying, you're
(06:00):
not gonna believe this, but and I'll tell you why
your story is so personal to me in a number
of steps, one of which ultimately, which we're not We're
going to do a spoiler alert here. We're not. We're
going to get there everybody. But ultimately, the person's whose
(06:21):
life you really saved is the son of a dear,
dear friend of mine, Which is the weirdest thing in
the world that a dear friend of mine from Memphis
as a son of Ohio whose life was changed by
your selfless generosity. And it's just so weird that we're
sitting across from each other, and I just can't wait
(06:43):
to get into it. So I just read briefly that
your mom was seventeen when you were born, and you
were child number two. I was tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So, my mother was fifteen when she got partnered with
my sister. She then that relationship didn't work out. They
were obviously children. My mom had her own interesting upbringing.
She was the daughter of a German immigrant who married
an American soldier, and that was a difficult upbringing, let's
put it that way. My grandfather was not the easiest man.
(07:19):
And then she met my father, who at the time
was twenty six, and he was they My sister was
just a few months old, no, ten months old, when
she got partnert with me. With my father, we have
different fathers.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
So you said they officially divorced when you were fourteen.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
They did end up marrying, yes, and they split. Yeah,
They did end up marying for a bit, and then
they I was fourteen, they had two more children. My
younger siblings are significantly younger than me, well, significantly six years.
But so they had us two, had a gap, and
then they had two more, and then they split a
fish when I was fourteen, my mom left finally.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
So I can't imagine in an atmosphere like that that
there was any affluence.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
There wasn't. There wasn't. I wouldn't say it was bottom poverty.
My grand my paternal grandparents were there were farmers, and
they were very very good people and were helping some
in that. Yeah, there was nothing before it became cool
to shop at goodwill. That's when we were doing it.
Now it's what everybody does.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
It is kind of cool to shop at goodwill now yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thrift storing is like up there on the cool thing.
But back then you were shopping there because that's necessity.
So your mom then married again, and I just read
that it was an abusive relationship. And then I read
somewhere it said Alex found it that you saved your
(08:48):
mom several times. What does that even mean?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
It does? So my mom which my mom was left
my father, who was not physically abusive, but has his
own mental health issues, and it was not a good marriage.
So then she rebounded and married pretty quickly into a
marriage that was very physically and mentally abusive. So I
would come. I would be sitting at school and I
would just have this gut feeling like you need to
(09:12):
go home. I need to go home now for cell
phones because I'm not young, And I would go up
to the office and I'd say, I need to go home.
I'm sick. Okay, you have go ahead and home. I
could walk and I would go home and find that
he was in a rage, and I would have to.
But for some reason, when I would walk in, he
wouldn't it would stop. He would leave. He wanted nothing
(09:34):
to do with me, so he would leave. There were
times when I did. I would wake up with the
middle of the night and my mom would jump in
my bed and say, tell him I'm not here, and
she'd crawl to the bottom of my bed and he
would come in my room looking for her, and I
would pretend it was pillows. I've hit a nerve my closet.
He used to do things like in the middle of
the night, he'd get really mad at her and take
all of her clothes and throw them in the yard.
We lived in town, so all the neighbors could see
(09:55):
all these clothes. And I would get up at four
o'clock in the morning and pick up her clothes and
bring them back in the house and clean it all
of the broken things outside so nobody would see. He
would try to duct taper and I would, you know,
take the duct tape. For some reason, he wasn't like
this with my other siblings, but with when I would
become present to him, he would back off, screaming not yelling?
How do we this time? Sixteen? Fifteen sixteen?
Speaker 1 (10:23):
That is traumatic?
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:27):
How how do you know forty six looking back thirty
years on that? Now as an adult, once you get
kind of self actualized and you think back on your childhood.
I think we all as we grow things about ourselves,
(10:47):
reveal themselves to us when we're really thinking about our lives,
and then we kind of connect dots. You know. How
now do you look back on your own childhood and
process who you are now against what that was? Then?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Only recently do I have a little more grace with.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Myself, grace with yourself?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
So I kind of feel like mom and I grew
up together, and I've always been her protector. She was
a child, she was a child trying to figure out
life right, and I've always been her protector in a sense,
or I felt the responsibility of protecting her. I was
born with a protective, empathetic soul. I think, and well,
(11:35):
there's nothing I like, there's nothing I regret, There's nothing
I would go back and change, except of course, for
my mother, but for myself. I am who I am
because I lived that life. I don't know how to
explain there are to articulate that properly. It was scary,
it was do it was, you know, there were times
(11:57):
where she would he was left to go. My mom
my first, when I came back from college the first year,
she was in a women's shelter because the abusa got
I was gone to the abusa gotten bad, and she
was in a shelter. And I came home and we
were and I from college at first semester and Christmas break,
and I stayed in that shelter with my two siblings.
The odor was gone already, my two siblings and my
(12:18):
mom in this women's shelter in a basement. And she said, well,
the dog is still back at the house. Will you go?
Will you go feed the dog? And I was like, yeah,
i'll go. I'll go feed the dog. So I went
drove to the other town where because the shelter was
at the county seat, and then we're down in a
different town and I went to feed the dog, and
then I went to unlock the house to get inside
to get some things she needed, and he was there.
And it was not a good it was it was terrifying.
(12:40):
That's probably the most terrifying for me because I wasn't
in protective mode. I wasn't defending my siblings. I wasn't
protecting my mom. It was just me by myself. And
that's the one that sticks out to me as the
scariest because I had nobody to protect but myself, and
I cared more about protecting them. I didn't. I just
wasn't thinking. And that didn't go great. And then so
(13:02):
then I drove as fast as I could to the
next you know, I jumped in my car ran and
because he just went to the door and just slammed
his hands on the door and was just screaming at me,
and so it just scared me. He didn't touch me,
he didn't do anything. So then I drove to the
police my car. I went to my mom was working
s worked at a bank as a bank teller at
that time, and I went I said, mommy's there. His
(13:22):
is what happened. I'm shaking, And she said, you need
to go to the police station. Well, I'm embarrassed to
go to the police station. I'm not. I'm you know,
that's embarrassing to me. I'm in college. I look at me.
I made it right, but I was all of eighteen.
And then he was. It was a trespassing for him,
and he was arrested and put in jail for the
final time.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I just it's just not natural for a fifteen year
old to be the person that is. Actually, the roles
were reversed.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
For sure, for sure for long before that though.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, But I think the only reason I'm talking about
this is I think it's your main to your story.
I just feel like the way you grew up conditioned
you to be a person who always felt like they
needed to offer.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Help, right, You're probably right, However, not I don't think
as you mature and grow, not at the expense of
completely of yourself. So my mom, you know, I don't
want to make her this this person who wasn't teaching
and helping, you know what I mean? She really was.
We did my mom like I was. I told Alex,
my mom learned a can from my paternal grandma, and
(14:41):
we'd had all these cans, and as a child, she
would take these these this can vegetables and things and
she would take us. We had nothing, right, so she
would take us to the nursing home and we'd follow
her along, and she'd go in the rooms where nobody
had they didn't have visitors, and she'd take them things.
My mom was also a giver. All that's how I
grew up. It's all you knew, you know. So this
to me is as far as the giving part is
(15:02):
just how you're raised in some sense, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
That's beautiful And the image of this horror story of
your home, yeah, against this, it feels like just you know,
German immigrant farming family who gardened and canned and took
(15:26):
canned goods when they didn't have anything at all to
old folks homes to give. I mean, it's such a dichotomy.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, yeah, and just I think it shows like no
matter what you see on the outside, there's different things
going on inside. Man. It was you know, her heart
was always she wasn't dealt the best hand.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Mom wasn't.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
But at the time she's a survivor and she's amazing.
But she really instilled in us And it wasn't even
about taking in the gift. It was about time, you know,
they just need someone to talk to, somebody to have
a conversation with. And she for what she had, I
think she did pretty well.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Oddly, we just we just had a listener send us
an email and We just did a shop talk on
it that'll be released. It may be released before or
after this episode gets released, but it was her saying
that she volunteers her times at retire communities and that
(16:24):
what she's learned is many old folks are just lonely.
And she said, encourage your listeners for a lonely widow
or widowed neighbor, or someone in a retirement community, or
your great grandmother or grandmother or grandfather that's there, to
spend extra time with them because they're just lonely. And
she wanted us and we did. We took it up
(16:45):
on shop talking did it. And it's interesting talking to
you that your grandmother and mother and you as a
kid did that very thing.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, I mean it was just my mom, but she
was only twenty three years old, but she picked up
on that, she knew that, and she would drag us
along with.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Her, and you know, because we were so sweet.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, she was, she was. She just my mom. Always
always say my mom wasn't raised. My mom survived, and
yeah she did the best she could.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
So everybody just keep listening, you'll get why. For Sam,
for you that that that experience I think matters. And
(17:36):
now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
we've launched a new written series called Normal Folks Wisdom.
I think Alex came up with that. Did you come
up with that?
Speaker 4 (17:49):
And an Army of Normal Dead Folks. People have strong
feelings on that one already, so we'll see what they
think about this.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I don't know about these titles, but anyway, we've got
this thing called Normal Folks Wisdom.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Come on, you like it?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I do like it, Actually I like it better than
Dead Folks. But whatever. What Normal Folks Wisdom is is
it's the heroic normal folks we interview and when they
share poignant, cutting, practical, and oftentimes hilarious wisdom with us.
So we want to make it digestible for Army members,
(18:23):
especially if you don't get a chance to listen to
every single episode with shame on you, you should or
all the way through, so we think everybody can find
it valuable. The best way to start getting Normal Folks
Wisdom is to follow us on Instagram at Army of
(18:43):
Normal Folks or by signing up to join the Army
at normal Folks dot us. As we're going to start
emailing these things out as well. There's some fancy folks
with some wisdom, but normal folks got a whole bunch
of it and are often overlooked. So I hope you'll
check it out. We'll be right back. So you go
(19:19):
to college.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I did, I didn't finish.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Where do you meet the lumberjack farmer feder John Guy? Well?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I met him later into adulthood. So I used to
make pies for a restaurant. So, like I said, my
grandparents were farmers. I grew up. My grandma taught me
to make pies. So I used to make pies for
a restaurant, and he was in that restaurant and the
rest is history.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Okay, So well what you do for a living is interesting. Yeah,
how did that? How did you wind into that?
Speaker 5 (19:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So I've been in the d D world for for years,
I'm sorry, developmental disability for years. And I started years ago.
I worked at an ICF, which is and where they
were individuals with developmental disabilities live in one home. Those
have kind of gone the way where they don't want
to do that anymore. But I worked there as their
activities director.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
And we're talking about down kids and uh yeah, usual
if they were if they live in an ICF they're
usually a little higher or sorry little their needs are
a little higher than just somebody with.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
With Down syndrome. So it could be, but it would
be in correlation with something else.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
So okay, so special needs, special.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Needs for sure, Yeah, yeah, okay. And then so I
did that, and then I worked for the Medicaid system,
doing some for the older folks who needed help in
their homes, and then that kind of trans and I've
always volunteered for Special Olympics since I was golly, I
guess when I was thirty, when I moved back to
the area, the.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
City a better in your family ever been special needs? What?
What's your heart? Where's the why do you have a
heart for that?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah? So from yeah, I love people. I just love
humanity and the humanity in that world and the culture
of that world is so beautiful. And it's a demographic
that a lot of people just kind of count out,
you know, well they don't understand, they don't, Yeah they do,
you know, And I just I've always you do it
(21:16):
once and it's easy to get addicted. So I volunteered
for the track team and the county that I live in,
and I volunteer and then you're just sucked in because
it's a beautiful, beautiful, complicated, exhausting, wonderful demographic of people.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I married Lisa when she was I guess twenty two
and I was twenty four, okay, And so I met
Lisa a year and a half prior to that. So
I'm fifty six now, So that was thirty four years ago.
(21:50):
And when I went to pick up Lisa for our
first day, I walked into and I grew up with nothing,
and I went to pick her up at this beautiful house,
and already I was intimidated. You know, I'm like, first
of all, she's dropped dead gorgeous, and I am, as
some viewers have aptly pointed out on Facebook, according to Alex,
(22:12):
kind of fat. All right, yeah, I mean just a
small intermission here, Alex informed me right before. The thing
is that someone was that someone was kind enough to
post on Facebook that he's a coach, but he's fat.
Is that what they said? Alex? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Actually, Ann mallam, you remember she kind of actually made
funny for that too. In the first episode, she said clearly,
did you made your players run but you didn't run?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, I mean a guest even called me fat. Yeah,
I mean, well, but Anne runs like seventeen miles a day.
But whatever, I can make fun of Ann two. She
wants to start it up. But the point is, just
today we got a post about how fat I am,
didn't we?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Yeah, I'm sorry I shouldn't have told you.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
You should of I'm over here. I mean years in
years of therapy to get over my fear of what
he complexes, and that set me back at least four
or five months to give you a hug. No, I
do not want to hug that. In fact, you probably
couldn't get your arms around me. I'm so fat. I'm
actually fat too. You're not near fat. I'm fat. I'm fat.
Sam Is is mister Lumberjack fat? Or is he in
(23:21):
good shape?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Oh? He works really hard, he's good looking.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
Dad?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
All right fat, I'm fat? Hey, our videographer, he's fat?
Aren't you fat? Casius? Yep? All right?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Just spread meant okay, all.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Right, Sorry, that's a diversion. The point is my not
very unattractive fat roan pulled up to pick up this
girl who is gorgeous in this big old house unlike
anything I've ever seen. And then this lady comes to
answered the door, her mother, who is beautiful and all
(23:57):
this nice furniture and stuff. And as I'm waiting least
to come downstairs take her out on her first date,
around comes this corner this interesting kid named Ben, Lisa's
little brother. He was eight at the time and so
loving wanted to He asked me seventeen and a half
thousand questions in the four minutes that I was standing
(24:19):
there in the faryor. And that was my introduction to
special needs people. And Ben has been part of my
life obviously for the last thirty five years. I have
watched been play special umpits basketball, I've gone to bowling.
I have visited him when he went to a large
(24:41):
campus home in both Kentucky and Texas. I have watched
with extreme joy the way he still rips into Christmas
presents when he gets them. I have also watched him
get so angry that he will throw stuff through windows
(25:02):
because of his frustration because he is low enough functioning
it's probably third grade, maybe second third grade, but he's
had enough functioning to know he's not right. And the
frustration that's inside of him because he can't communicate what's
going on in is that in his heart because he
is a human being. Still to this moment, bristle when
(25:28):
somebody talking about somebody who does something stupid says the words, oh,
you're so retarded, I correct everybody that uses that term.
I find it offensive. And I have also been very
angry when we're out at Walmart or somewhere and watched
(25:52):
people look or hear Ben and then almost recoil or
move away as fast as possible. And I also am
embarrassed to say that my first once a least and
I started dating after that first date, and we became
(26:13):
an item before getting married. I mean, we took Ben
everywhere with us, and it took me a few months
to get over my own insecurities about what people were
looking at and saying about me being with Ben, until
I decided that was cheap and gross and I need
to be a champion for Ben. So I have a
(26:37):
very personal relationship with challenged folks. It takes a really
special mindset to want to work with people like Ben
and just talk about it a little bit.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, so everything you say hits home. Well, I don't
have a family connection these these guys. You know, my
phone's NonStop. I'm sure I have text right now, since
we've sat down, they're they're I'm a part of their family.
They're all parts of mine. So I have I'm the
coordinator for our county Special Olympics and we have sixty
seven registered athletes in a.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Little old place like that. Yeah, how far of a
geographical area do these sixty seven people come from.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
It's one county, just one county, one county.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yeah, one small rural county.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
It's a rural county.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Sixty seven special needs and special ops. Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
And so we have all kinds of different sports. And
when I first started, all they had was bowling and
once in a while they had a basketball team. But
so we have lots of things. My thought was, we've
got to offer more because right, bullying is not right
for everybody. You know, you have eight year olds coming
in who want to do things. And so we just
added sport after support after sports that we can be
more inclusive, because that's what we're trying to do, right,
(27:55):
have inclusiveivity, inclusivity, And we've added unified sports, which for
us has been phenomenal. Unified meeting your traditional athletes from
high school or college or adulthood. Your traditional athletes play
with alongside our Special Olympics athletes and that is where
we get We have so much fun because friendships are
built and communities built and you're not just marked into
(28:19):
one spot, right, So then you see out in public
and you see these and it just brings awareness to
the community. With our unified sports, which has been ough.
Just I'm just so proud of them. I'm proud of
all of our sports with the unified ones because you
see the high school kids come in and get it
and they under oh okay, you know, and it's been
that's been one of the biggest joys of my life.
(28:41):
What I get back from this is ten times more
than I'll ever give in. And when people are like,
it's amazing that you do that, it chocks me because
what I get it's almost selfish. It just so so
much into my life. It's phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Do you I'd like you to speak to what happens
viscerally inside you when you see people who are blessed
with all of their faculties ten fingers, ten toes and
a good sound mind decide it's okay to belittle someone
(29:20):
who's special needs. Because it happens, and I forget it
happens in jokes, it happens in language, it'll happen in
the old curl up your hands and you know, act
like that stuff. It absolutely is revolting to me what
happens inside you when you see that, given that you
spend your life around special needs people, caring for them
(29:42):
and building relationships.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
With them, Like I said, because there's so much joy
and there's and I see the work that goes in
with our folks, and they're doing all the things right,
they're going they're doing all the things right that I
forget that it happens. And I just had it happen.
I had a populated email that came to me that
someone can go in and fill out a form if
they're interested and they don't know anything about our program.
(30:04):
So I was like, oh, so I got it populated
to my email. I called them and it was a
high school kid whose friends had played a joke on
him because they said, ha ha, he qualifies. And he's like,
my friends are playing a joke. I'm really sorry, and
it just my gut, it just in my heart like
what I don't even know how to put into words.
The disrespect is so real and it's it's disheartening. It's
(30:29):
it's you're talking about some really good people, but they're
they're human, right, So they're human. Sometimes they're not like
you and I sometimes were jerks right, well, at least
I am. But these are human beings living their best life,
doing their best, you know. And to see somebody so
minimize what they bring to this world is makes me
(30:50):
physically ill. Me too physically And.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
What kind of crap do you have in your own
life that you feel like it's a valuable use of
your time to detegrate someone who is not as blessed
as you are.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Honestly, I'm sorry for them, you know, to be so
uncomfortable with who you are that that makes you feel better. Yeah,
that's a tough.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Life to live, you know what we say in the South. No,
bless your heart, yea, bless their hearts for being so small. Okay,
I got that off my chest and I enjoyed it.
Did you enjoy it? I hope? I hope somebody listening
here is taking stock of that and make sure that
I went to I was involved in an organization who said,
(31:43):
obviously you can't lie steed or chill, lie steet or
chill lie, cheat or still yeah, and then it was
just as big of an infraction against the rules if
you knew somebody was lying, cheating, and stealing and didn't
speak up. I think in this little conversation we have
(32:08):
great if you don't do that, but if you suffer
people who do it and are unwilling to speak up
against it on the behalf of someone who is not
as fortunate as you, I think it's just as bad.
And so that's why I'm saying this is I don't
think everybody listen to us makes fun of special needs people.
But if you're around people that make fun of special
(32:29):
needs people and you turn a blind eye to it,
and my opinion, you're just as guilty. Speak up on
behalf of the most needy among.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Us, for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
For sure, we'll be right back. So you spend your life.
When you showed up, they had bowling and now they
(32:59):
have like sixteen sports.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Well we have not sixteen. We have two different basketball teams,
we have flag football, we.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Have bowling football.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, we just started this past year. It was a
huge chick.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
So much.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
And our coaches, you know, all of our coaches are volunteers.
So I'm surrounded by these humans who are on the
same page as me, like they're there to just love
their athletes and to coach. It's like our coaches don't
mess around. They're there to coach. We have competitive we
have unified cheer and a traditional chaer team, which are
both competitive teams. We have unified volleyball, we have unified golf.
(33:37):
I don't know if I named them all, but we
just we just keep our athletes really busy.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
And we said not sixteen, but you're already up to nine.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah, yeah, questrian. We start a questrian too, which is
questrian Yeah, which is really neat. We were able to
I knew continuing to do this. We know we're I
don't want to miss a demographic and so our higher
needs and we keep that for them. That that's because
it's very expensive. That's where there are place to be
and it's been in life change. I have families. What
this does for our athletes is amazing and I never
(34:04):
want toke away, but what it does for their families.
They get to watch their child be the star to be,
to do the things that traditional parents get to see
their kids do in which I lived for when my
kids were They.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Also get to watch their kids smile and have relationships,
and we.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Had one speak for the first time during a question
for the first time. I mean it is. We had
one girl who with the equestrian team. It's called stemming,
which I don't know if you're familiar with, but she
holds stuffed animals and she just does this. And these
stuffed animals are at school, they never go down, they
never go down. Now a year later, when she walks
into that barn, her stuffies go down and she grabs
(34:42):
her horse, and that's huge. It doesn't seem like a
huge thing, right, but you have parents over sobbing because
she put them down and her horse is everything. It's
just changed lives. I have parents tell me the only
nights their child sleeps for more than six hours are
on the nights they have their special Olympics event. It's
life changing for families too, not just not just our athletes.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
So people listen to us would think this is an
episode about the special Olympics and special needs people.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I could talk about it all day, but guess.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
What it is not. That is just what you do. Yeah,
and the story about your upbringing is just where you
came from. That I think all culminates into the crux
of why you're here today, and I want to tell
you a little bit about why this story is so
(35:37):
personal to me. When the Memphis Grizzlies moved to the
FedEx Forum maybe fifteen years ago, I was introduced to
this guy named Mike who was a C level guy there,
and we formed a really good friendship. He's this Canadian
(35:58):
guy moved to Memphis who was involved in professional sports
at all kinds of levels, and we really did we
for himed a really good good friendship. And then he
moved off to Phoenix to become I think the chief
administrative officer or financial officer, revenue officer something for the
Phoenix something codes they have.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
So he's usually been chief revenue officer, chief revenue like
the Sons and the SuperSonics and the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, I mean he's been Mike was all over the place.
It's been a big executive in professional sports all over
the place. And then when he resigned from that, this
cat moved back to Memphis. And the reason moved back
to Memphis is he loves Memphis. This Canadian that could
probably live anywhere, and I think he's got a Master's
and some stuff. He's really bright. Anyway, Mike and I
(36:48):
became buddies, and over the last few years, Mike's been
incredibly involved in Memphis. We have this new amazing tennis
center that he kind of spearheaded happening. And when I
say tennis center, the University of Memphis teams play in it.
It's massive. It's one of the largest municipal tennis centers
(37:10):
in the world. It's brand new, it's got indoor courts outdoor,
it's gorgeous. And then I think the second largest municipal
indoor outdoor basketball arena that can host National AAU Games
was built in the middle of Memphis. But it's a
(37:32):
dual or a multi purpose place that you can host
national chess championships, you can host e sports championships, which
is a big deal. And he's a multi million dollar thing.
He was the spearhead of that. The Liberty Bowl is
now sponsored by Simmons Bank. He was instrumental in that
the Cook Convention Center, a big convention center downtown, got
(37:56):
renamed Rights. He was center that. I mean, he's just done.
He's a Memphis transplant who has done stuff literally all
over our city to improve it, and everywhere he goes,
he improves our city. And he is my buddy, and
I love the guy, Mike Humes. So you know, as
(38:18):
you do in your friends, and you go to dinner
with your wives and stuff, you talk about life. And
Mike told me about his kids, and he told me
about this one son he had that had some problems
at birth and and because of the because of the
treatment he had to have, he lost his hearing and
(38:41):
had renal failure and whatever. And so I knew about
his son, Scott, and I don't know, six months to
a year ago, we went to lunch and he said
that Scott's kidney had had failed. He was being kept
(39:04):
alive by dialysis. And this is after he told me
that the guy got leukemia. And was I'm just like,
how much can one father talk about how much his
son had been dealt I mean, deafness, then a kidney
(39:25):
transplant as a young kid, and then renal failure again
and lymphoma and he beat that. And I'm thinking, this
sickly boy in a bubble. And what I find out
is despite all of this, this guy's gone to college.
He's playing on US hockey teams. They've won a national
(39:46):
hockey something in Ohio. And you know, this kid, despite
having his hearing taking from him at a young age,
and having kidney transplants when he's like thirteen or fourteen
or whatever, and then having lymphoma and everything, he still
(40:06):
ends up playing hockey at a high level and competing
in national everything. And I'm just like, what a testament
to this guy. That's the story for me. That's it. Mike,
my buddy, who has this sick kid who's overcoming a
ton of stuff and it is just an impressive kid.
And then we're having lunch and he says he's in
renal failure and if he doesn't get a kidney, he's
(40:27):
gonna die. And you can see then, as any parent
would have. You could see the concern, but you could
also see the fight in his eyes. And you know,
what do you say to a friend like that, other
than if there's anything I can do, let me know.
(40:48):
I'll pray for you, I love you. Do you need
shoulder to crime or just somebody to talk to holler?
And then a not a short time long ago, he
said he was going up to Oho to be with
Scott because he was getting his kidney and it was like, Wow, amazing,
(41:09):
you know, and then and he didn't say anything else.
And then not too long ago, he told me about
this thing that the medical center at Ohio State did
and this chain thing and how it all happened, and
that it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for this innocuous,
(41:33):
unknown woman who didn't have a single relationship to anybody,
and all of these ten people's lives who were saved
by giving kidneys, who just out of the goodness of
her heart, said you know what, I have two of
these things. I could donate one and save a life,
and I'm going to do it. And Sam, that's you.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
I get tears even saying it. Sam. It is the
most selfless thing I've ever heard of. So I've revealed it,
but I would love for you to take us through why.
I'm sure by now you're where versed in how this
chain of events happens at Ohio State and explained that
(42:21):
incredible work, how many lives were changed and saved, how
many people were involved. I know that you believe in
silent giving, and I know you're not a chest thumping,
look at me kind of girl, but you're gonna have
to do that a little bit with me to tell
the story. And I am just in awe of your selflessness.
(42:46):
So why in the world are you cutting your body
open for people you don't know? And how did all
this work?
Speaker 2 (42:53):
You know? I've been asked that a lot in the
last two months, not quite two months, and I still
failed to properly articulate unless you understand that still small voice.
And I don't know how to properly explain it to
people who don't get it, but maybe you will. I'll
do my best. We've all see online. You know, somebody
(43:17):
knows somebody who needs a gidney, right you see? And
on backs of cars, you see all those things. And
I've seen those for years, just like everybody else has.
And I didn't have necessarily a person in mind, but
I remember, I remember where I was, and I failed it.
I wasn't around any of those things, but feeling it
in my soul. You need to get tested to donate
(43:39):
your kidney. And I don't know anybody in my family
who you know, has such things. But to explain that
feeling is I can't, except you know, you have to
on the same token. I processed it for a couple
of days making sure it wasn't the same thing, making
sure it wasn't a you know, when you're in the
social work world, you can be accused of wanting to
(43:59):
save the world. I wanted to make sure that wasn't
that feeling that it was a god thing. So I
wait about a while.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
You wanted to make sure that, in the weirdest way,
it wasn't selfish, but it was a God thing.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah, I want how in the.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
World can be given a kidney away be selfish?
Speaker 2 (44:17):
I wanted to make sure that it wasn't a thing
that just I wanted to do. I needed to make
sure that it was a God Are you telling me
to do this? Because this came out of nowhere for me,
absolutely nowhere, and so I really wanted to dissect it
and to make things. Have I do other things for
other people that I that I just feel like I
(44:41):
want to. But this was going to affect more than
just me. This was going to affect my job, my athletes,
my family, you know. So I needed to make sure.
So I presented it to my husband about a week
after I've been praying about it, like, but this was
not going away. It was getting louder and louder and louder.
It wasn't and I, you know, and he's so used
to me saying, hey, I really feel like we need
(45:01):
to do this.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
And to be clear, you knew nobody know nobody.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
I don't know these people exist, Like what you just
told me about this. This is the first I've heard
this Scott story to that extent.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Really. Yeah, I'm glad to share that with you.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Hopefully it hopefully it helps you understand the impact of
your selflessness.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah, it's it's beautiful. It's not me with the story
is beautiful. And so my husband is pretty used to it.
And he's like, well, okay, so we So.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
I almost to know your husband did not say that.
Speaker 5 (45:35):
That's just there's no way, okay, Sam, there's no way
you walked in and said, hey, honey, I hope the
harvest is going, well, I'm gonna give away a kidney
and he goes, Okay, that's not how that happened.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
You're right, you're right, Okay, how did that happen? Okay?
So I said, I'm going to reach out and get
more information, and he's like and he is like, okay, Well,
the good news is Ohio State sends this video and
not only you have to watch it, but your caretaker
has to watch it. He would be my caretaker in
this situation. And they do an excellent job with the video. Again,
(46:08):
he didn't say okay, he's but he is very used
to in these last few decades me saying I've got this,
I've got this feeling, I've got this, and he's so
used to that that he takes it with a grain
of salt. So because the things have happened before, I
was like, Okay, that's not gonna work. That's not what
we're supposed to do. So he just takes it with
(46:29):
a grain of salt and says, okay, I'll watch the
video with you. He's this, mate, Yeah, yeah, my. You know,
we're going to regional basketball tournament next weekend and my
basketball coaches can't be there for other reasons. And by
the way, babe, your coach a basketball Okay, this is
this is his life. He knows this, he knows he's signed,
he knew what he signed up for.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
And that concludes part one of my conversation with Sam
Fletterer John and guys, you don't want to us Part two.
That's now available to listen to, where special guest joins Sam. Together, guys,
we can change this country, and it starts with you.
I'll see you in Part two.
You're watching a video that says we're gonna cut your
body open.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Well, they're cartoon characters.
Speaker 1 (00:07):
What's that happen?
Speaker 2 (00:07):
They're cartoon characters.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Matter, it's still your body. And you're gonna be down
for two weeks. You're going to have to be away
from work, and somebody's gonna have to take care of you,
and you're gonna have to go through all of this
for someone that you have never met, don't know, don't love,
or don't care about right now.
Speaker 2 (00:28):
Okay, but yet you're down for three weeks. You're down.
Somebody gets their life back.
Speaker 1 (00:35):
Yeah, but you're giving up so much of your life.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
They're getting their life back.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
How is that?
Speaker 2 (00:40):
How is that comparable? How is that comparable? I just
somebody's child.
Speaker 1 (00:47):
What getting your kidney taken out?
Speaker 2 (00:53):
Worth it? I do it? If I had if I
had five more, I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:03):
Welcome to an army of normal folks. I'm Bill Courtney.
I'm a normal guy. I'm a husband, I'm a father,
I'm an entrepreneur, and I've been a football coach an
inner city Memphis. And somehow that last part led to
an oscar for the film about our team. That movie
is called undefeated, y'all. I believe our country's problems will
(01:26):
never be solved by a bunch of fancy people and
nice suits using big words that nobody ever uses on
CNN and Fox, but rather by an army of normal folks.
That's us, just you and me deciding, Hey, you know what,
maybe I can help. That's exactly what Sam Fletterjohn, the
(01:48):
voice you just heard, has done. Sam donated her kidney
to a complete stranger, and because she was what they
call an altruistic donor, it enabled an entire chain of
kidney donations to be unlocked, which ultimately meant that ten
(02:10):
people who needed kidneys got them and are alive because
of her. I cannot wait for you to meet Sam
right after these brief messages from our general sponsors. Samantha Fletter,
(02:41):
y'all be a good guy. And it's your last name.
I'm a spell it F L E D D E
R j O h A N N flutter John Fletter John.
Speaker 2 (02:53):
Where I come from, that is normal.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
We're all over what is the what? What's what? What
is that is that? Sweetish? Well?
Speaker 2 (03:04):
It's German. I didn't choose it. I'm married into it.
It's German and it's they are all over in our
small town.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
When I hear a name like that, I picture your
husband looks like a viking or a lumber giant. Fletter John.
Speaker 2 (03:18):
My husband's like five eight.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
Okay, well I'm misread there, he did. But welcome, Welcome
to Memphis.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (03:26):
From where do you hail? Sam?
Speaker 2 (03:28):
We are from a small farm town in Ohio, New Bremen.
Speaker 1 (03:32):
And your your husband, mister fletter John, is a farmer.
Speaker 2 (03:37):
He farms.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
Yeah, that's awesome. So did you grow up there in.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
That Yep, I grew up in the area, so it's
everything's so small. So if you grew up there, it's
like four different towns because, got it.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
Yeah, that's where you grew up. Yes, so do you
You just got to Memphis last night?
Speaker 2 (03:52):
We did well yesterday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (03:54):
What'd y'all do?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
We ate and ate.
Speaker 1 (03:57):
Everything you can do in Memphis is eat and eat.
Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:00):
So we walked down Beale Street and found some some barbecue,
and then we made our way over to Elbows's house Graceland. Yeah,
we didn't do the tour, but we just looked at
everything from the outside, saw the planes, and then we
came back and ate again.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
We did.
Speaker 1 (04:19):
Where'd you get the where'd you barbecue? Do you remember
the place?
Speaker 2 (04:23):
Some kind of pig, dirty pig, mad pig pig won. Yeah,
it won the twenty twenty three May barbecue thing.
Speaker 1 (04:28):
Possibly pig and whistle.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
Okay, okay, yeah it was. And you know, the streets
are pretty empty right now because it's crazy cold, and
where do we go it? Yeah, they said it different
than we were saying it, but we ate there and
then we picked up a Grizzly game last night. Cool,
we could walk over there. A Grizzly game by a landslide.
Speaker 1 (04:50):
Yeah, the Grizzly game. Fun. Yeah, it was good time.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
We had a good time. That was just a random thing.
We're in Memphis.
Speaker 1 (04:56):
Let's go Yeah, well, good Welcome to our fair s.
Usually when we introduce guests, we will say Sam Fletter
John with an organization. All we're doing tonight today is saying, hey,
Sam Fletter John Dash no organization, no organization. But your
(05:17):
story may be one of the most inspirational, uplifting examples
of kindness, empathy, and giving that I think I've ever seen.
Speaker 2 (05:35):
Thank you for saying that It's true.
Speaker 1 (05:37):
Thank you. I genuinely feel like I'm in the presence
of just one of the finest people I've ever read about,
and I cannot wait to dive in to your story.
Before we do, I have a lot of personal connections
to your story in odd ways. So as you tell
your story, I will anecdotally say to you saying, you're
(06:00):
not gonna believe this, but and I'll tell you why
your story is so personal to me in a number
of steps, one of which ultimately, which we're not We're
going to do a spoiler alert here. We're not. We're
going to get there everybody. But ultimately, the person's whose
(06:21):
life you really saved is the son of a dear,
dear friend of mine, Which is the weirdest thing in
the world that a dear friend of mine from Memphis
as a son of Ohio whose life was changed by
your selfless generosity. And it's just so weird that we're
sitting across from each other, and I just can't wait
(06:43):
to get into it. So I just read briefly that
your mom was seventeen when you were born, and you
were child number two. I was tell me about that.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So, my mother was fifteen when she got partnered with
my sister. She then that relationship didn't work out. They
were obviously children. My mom had her own interesting upbringing.
She was the daughter of a German immigrant who married
an American soldier, and that was a difficult upbringing, let's
put it that way. My grandfather was not the easiest man.
(07:19):
And then she met my father, who at the time
was twenty six, and he was they My sister was
just a few months old, no, ten months old, when
she got partnert with me. With my father, we have
different fathers.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
So you said they officially divorced when you were fourteen.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
They did end up marrying, yes, and they split. Yeah,
They did end up marying for a bit, and then
they I was fourteen, they had two more children. My
younger siblings are significantly younger than me, well, significantly six years.
But so they had us two, had a gap, and
then they had two more, and then they split a
fish when I was fourteen, my mom left finally.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
So I can't imagine in an atmosphere like that that
there was any affluence.
Speaker 2 (08:07):
There wasn't. There wasn't. I wouldn't say it was bottom poverty.
My grand my paternal grandparents were there were farmers, and
they were very very good people and were helping some
in that. Yeah, there was nothing before it became cool
to shop at goodwill. That's when we were doing it.
Now it's what everybody does.
Speaker 1 (08:25):
It is kind of cool to shop at goodwill now yeah, yeah, yeah.
Thrift storing is like up there on the cool thing.
But back then you were shopping there because that's necessity.
So your mom then married again, and I just read
that it was an abusive relationship. And then I read
somewhere it said Alex found it that you saved your
(08:48):
mom several times. What does that even mean?
Speaker 2 (08:51):
It does? So my mom which my mom was left
my father, who was not physically abusive, but has his
own mental health issues, and it was not a good marriage.
So then she rebounded and married pretty quickly into a
marriage that was very physically and mentally abusive. So I
would come. I would be sitting at school and I
would just have this gut feeling like you need to
(09:12):
go home. I need to go home now for cell
phones because I'm not young, And I would go up
to the office and I'd say, I need to go home.
I'm sick. Okay, you have go ahead and home. I
could walk and I would go home and find that
he was in a rage, and I would have to.
But for some reason, when I would walk in, he
wouldn't it would stop. He would leave. He wanted nothing
(09:34):
to do with me, so he would leave. There were
times when I did. I would wake up with the
middle of the night and my mom would jump in
my bed and say, tell him I'm not here, and
she'd crawl to the bottom of my bed and he
would come in my room looking for her, and I
would pretend it was pillows. I've hit a nerve my closet.
He used to do things like in the middle of
the night, he'd get really mad at her and take
all of her clothes and throw them in the yard.
We lived in town, so all the neighbors could see
(09:55):
all these clothes. And I would get up at four
o'clock in the morning and pick up her clothes and
bring them back in the house and clean it all
of the broken things outside so nobody would see. He
would try to duct taper and I would, you know,
take the duct tape. For some reason, he wasn't like
this with my other siblings, but with when I would
become present to him, he would back off, screaming not yelling?
How do we this time? Sixteen? Fifteen sixteen?
Speaker 1 (10:23):
That is traumatic?
Speaker 2 (10:25):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (10:27):
How how do you know forty six looking back thirty
years on that? Now as an adult, once you get
kind of self actualized and you think back on your childhood.
I think we all as we grow things about ourselves,
(10:47):
reveal themselves to us when we're really thinking about our lives,
and then we kind of connect dots. You know. How
now do you look back on your own childhood and
process who you are now against what that was? Then?
Speaker 2 (11:06):
Only recently do I have a little more grace with.
Speaker 1 (11:08):
Myself, grace with yourself?
Speaker 2 (11:10):
Yeah?
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Wow.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
So I kind of feel like mom and I grew
up together, and I've always been her protector. She was
a child, she was a child trying to figure out
life right, and I've always been her protector in a sense,
or I felt the responsibility of protecting her. I was
born with a protective, empathetic soul. I think, and well,
(11:35):
there's nothing I like, there's nothing I regret, There's nothing
I would go back and change, except of course, for
my mother, but for myself. I am who I am
because I lived that life. I don't know how to
explain there are to articulate that properly. It was scary,
it was do it was, you know, there were times
(11:57):
where she would he was left to go. My mom
my first, when I came back from college the first year,
she was in a women's shelter because the abusa got
I was gone to the abusa gotten bad, and she
was in a shelter. And I came home and we
were and I from college at first semester and Christmas break,
and I stayed in that shelter with my two siblings.
The odor was gone already, my two siblings and my
(12:18):
mom in this women's shelter in a basement. And she said, well,
the dog is still back at the house. Will you go?
Will you go feed the dog? And I was like, yeah,
i'll go. I'll go feed the dog. So I went
drove to the other town where because the shelter was
at the county seat, and then we're down in a
different town and I went to feed the dog, and
then I went to unlock the house to get inside
to get some things she needed, and he was there.
And it was not a good it was it was terrifying.
(12:40):
That's probably the most terrifying for me because I wasn't
in protective mode. I wasn't defending my siblings. I wasn't
protecting my mom. It was just me by myself. And
that's the one that sticks out to me as the
scariest because I had nobody to protect but myself, and
I cared more about protecting them. I didn't. I just
wasn't thinking. And that didn't go great. And then so
(13:02):
then I drove as fast as I could to the
next you know, I jumped in my car ran and
because he just went to the door and just slammed
his hands on the door and was just screaming at me,
and so it just scared me. He didn't touch me,
he didn't do anything. So then I drove to the
police my car. I went to my mom was working
s worked at a bank as a bank teller at
that time, and I went I said, mommy's there. His
(13:22):
is what happened. I'm shaking, And she said, you need
to go to the police station. Well, I'm embarrassed to
go to the police station. I'm not. I'm you know,
that's embarrassing to me. I'm in college. I look at me.
I made it right, but I was all of eighteen.
And then he was. It was a trespassing for him,
and he was arrested and put in jail for the
final time.
Speaker 1 (13:43):
I just it's just not natural for a fifteen year
old to be the person that is. Actually, the roles
were reversed.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
For sure, for sure for long before that though.
Speaker 1 (13:58):
Yeah, But I think the only reason I'm talking about
this is I think it's your main to your story.
I just feel like the way you grew up conditioned
you to be a person who always felt like they
needed to offer.
Speaker 2 (14:18):
Help, right, You're probably right, However, not I don't think
as you mature and grow, not at the expense of
completely of yourself. So my mom, you know, I don't
want to make her this this person who wasn't teaching
and helping, you know what I mean? She really was.
We did my mom like I was. I told Alex,
my mom learned a can from my paternal grandma, and
(14:41):
we'd had all these cans, and as a child, she
would take these these this can vegetables and things and
she would take us. We had nothing, right, so she
would take us to the nursing home and we'd follow
her along, and she'd go in the rooms where nobody
had they didn't have visitors, and she'd take them things.
My mom was also a giver. All that's how I
grew up. It's all you knew, you know. So this
to me is as far as the giving part is
(15:02):
just how you're raised in some sense, you know.
Speaker 1 (15:05):
That's beautiful And the image of this horror story of
your home, yeah, against this, it feels like just you know,
German immigrant farming family who gardened and canned and took
(15:26):
canned goods when they didn't have anything at all to
old folks homes to give. I mean, it's such a dichotomy.
Speaker 2 (15:33):
Yeah, yeah, and just I think it shows like no
matter what you see on the outside, there's different things
going on inside. Man. It was you know, her heart
was always she wasn't dealt the best hand.
Speaker 1 (15:45):
Mom wasn't.
Speaker 2 (15:45):
But at the time she's a survivor and she's amazing.
But she really instilled in us And it wasn't even
about taking in the gift. It was about time, you know,
they just need someone to talk to, somebody to have
a conversation with. And she for what she had, I
think she did pretty well.
Speaker 1 (16:01):
Oddly, we just we just had a listener send us
an email and We just did a shop talk on
it that'll be released. It may be released before or
after this episode gets released, but it was her saying
that she volunteers her times at retire communities and that
(16:24):
what she's learned is many old folks are just lonely.
And she said, encourage your listeners for a lonely widow
or widowed neighbor, or someone in a retirement community, or
your great grandmother or grandmother or grandfather that's there, to
spend extra time with them because they're just lonely. And
she wanted us and we did. We took it up
(16:45):
on shop talking did it. And it's interesting talking to
you that your grandmother and mother and you as a
kid did that very thing.
Speaker 2 (16:52):
Yeah, I mean it was just my mom, but she
was only twenty three years old, but she picked up
on that, she knew that, and she would drag us
along with.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Her, and you know, because we were so sweet.
Speaker 2 (17:02):
Yeah, she was, she was. She just my mom. Always
always say my mom wasn't raised. My mom survived, and
yeah she did the best she could.
Speaker 1 (17:12):
So everybody just keep listening, you'll get why. For Sam,
for you that that that experience I think matters. And
(17:36):
now a few messages from our general sponsors. But first,
we've launched a new written series called Normal Folks Wisdom.
I think Alex came up with that. Did you come
up with that?
Speaker 4 (17:49):
And an Army of Normal Dead Folks. People have strong
feelings on that one already, so we'll see what they
think about this.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
I don't know about these titles, but anyway, we've got
this thing called Normal Folks Wisdom.
Speaker 4 (18:01):
Come on, you like it?
Speaker 1 (18:02):
I do like it, Actually I like it better than
Dead Folks. But whatever. What Normal Folks Wisdom is is
it's the heroic normal folks we interview and when they
share poignant, cutting, practical, and oftentimes hilarious wisdom with us.
So we want to make it digestible for Army members,
(18:23):
especially if you don't get a chance to listen to
every single episode with shame on you, you should or
all the way through, so we think everybody can find
it valuable. The best way to start getting Normal Folks
Wisdom is to follow us on Instagram at Army of
(18:43):
Normal Folks or by signing up to join the Army
at normal Folks dot us. As we're going to start
emailing these things out as well. There's some fancy folks
with some wisdom, but normal folks got a whole bunch
of it and are often overlooked. So I hope you'll
check it out. We'll be right back. So you go
(19:19):
to college.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
I did, I didn't finish.
Speaker 1 (19:21):
Where do you meet the lumberjack farmer feder John Guy? Well?
Speaker 2 (19:26):
I met him later into adulthood. So I used to
make pies for a restaurant. So, like I said, my
grandparents were farmers. I grew up. My grandma taught me
to make pies. So I used to make pies for
a restaurant, and he was in that restaurant and the
rest is history.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
Okay, So well what you do for a living is interesting. Yeah,
how did that? How did you wind into that?
Speaker 5 (19:51):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:51):
So I've been in the d D world for for years,
I'm sorry, developmental disability for years. And I started years ago.
I worked at an ICF, which is and where they
were individuals with developmental disabilities live in one home. Those
have kind of gone the way where they don't want
to do that anymore. But I worked there as their
activities director.
Speaker 3 (20:12):
And we're talking about down kids and uh yeah, usual
if they were if they live in an ICF they're
usually a little higher or sorry little their needs are
a little higher than just somebody with.
Speaker 2 (20:24):
With Down syndrome. So it could be, but it would
be in correlation with something else.
Speaker 1 (20:28):
So okay, so special needs, special.
Speaker 2 (20:30):
Needs for sure, Yeah, yeah, okay. And then so I
did that, and then I worked for the Medicaid system,
doing some for the older folks who needed help in
their homes, and then that kind of trans and I've
always volunteered for Special Olympics since I was golly, I
guess when I was thirty, when I moved back to
the area, the.
Speaker 1 (20:48):
City a better in your family ever been special needs? What?
What's your heart? Where's the why do you have a
heart for that?
Speaker 2 (20:55):
Yeah? So from yeah, I love people. I just love
humanity and the humanity in that world and the culture
of that world is so beautiful. And it's a demographic
that a lot of people just kind of count out,
you know, well they don't understand, they don't, Yeah they do,
you know, And I just I've always you do it
(21:16):
once and it's easy to get addicted. So I volunteered
for the track team and the county that I live in,
and I volunteer and then you're just sucked in because
it's a beautiful, beautiful, complicated, exhausting, wonderful demographic of people.
Speaker 1 (21:29):
I married Lisa when she was I guess twenty two
and I was twenty four, okay, And so I met
Lisa a year and a half prior to that. So
I'm fifty six now, So that was thirty four years ago.
(21:50):
And when I went to pick up Lisa for our
first day, I walked into and I grew up with nothing,
and I went to pick her up at this beautiful house,
and already I was intimidated. You know, I'm like, first
of all, she's dropped dead gorgeous, and I am, as
some viewers have aptly pointed out on Facebook, according to Alex,
(22:12):
kind of fat. All right, yeah, I mean just a
small intermission here, Alex informed me right before. The thing
is that someone was that someone was kind enough to
post on Facebook that he's a coach, but he's fat.
Is that what they said? Alex? Yeah?
Speaker 4 (22:32):
Actually, Ann mallam, you remember she kind of actually made
funny for that too. In the first episode, she said clearly,
did you made your players run but you didn't run?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
Yeah, I mean a guest even called me fat. Yeah,
I mean, well, but Anne runs like seventeen miles a day.
But whatever, I can make fun of Ann two. She
wants to start it up. But the point is, just
today we got a post about how fat I am,
didn't we?
Speaker 4 (22:57):
Yeah, I'm sorry I shouldn't have told you.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
You should of I'm over here. I mean years in
years of therapy to get over my fear of what
he complexes, and that set me back at least four
or five months to give you a hug. No, I
do not want to hug that. In fact, you probably
couldn't get your arms around me. I'm so fat. I'm
actually fat too. You're not near fat. I'm fat. I'm fat.
Sam Is is mister Lumberjack fat? Or is he in
(23:21):
good shape?
Speaker 2 (23:22):
Oh? He works really hard, he's good looking.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
Dad?
Speaker 1 (23:26):
All right fat, I'm fat? Hey, our videographer, he's fat?
Aren't you fat? Casius? Yep? All right?
Speaker 2 (23:34):
Just spread meant okay, all.
Speaker 1 (23:36):
Right, Sorry, that's a diversion. The point is my not
very unattractive fat roan pulled up to pick up this
girl who is gorgeous in this big old house unlike
anything I've ever seen. And then this lady comes to
answered the door, her mother, who is beautiful and all
(23:57):
this nice furniture and stuff. And as I'm waiting least
to come downstairs take her out on her first date,
around comes this corner this interesting kid named Ben, Lisa's
little brother. He was eight at the time and so
loving wanted to He asked me seventeen and a half
thousand questions in the four minutes that I was standing
(24:19):
there in the faryor. And that was my introduction to
special needs people. And Ben has been part of my
life obviously for the last thirty five years. I have
watched been play special umpits basketball, I've gone to bowling.
I have visited him when he went to a large
(24:41):
campus home in both Kentucky and Texas. I have watched
with extreme joy the way he still rips into Christmas
presents when he gets them. I have also watched him
get so angry that he will throw stuff through windows
(25:02):
because of his frustration because he is low enough functioning
it's probably third grade, maybe second third grade, but he's
had enough functioning to know he's not right. And the
frustration that's inside of him because he can't communicate what's
going on in is that in his heart because he
is a human being. Still to this moment, bristle when
(25:28):
somebody talking about somebody who does something stupid says the words, oh,
you're so retarded, I correct everybody that uses that term.
I find it offensive. And I have also been very
angry when we're out at Walmart or somewhere and watched
(25:52):
people look or hear Ben and then almost recoil or
move away as fast as possible. And I also am
embarrassed to say that my first once a least and
I started dating after that first date, and we became
(26:13):
an item before getting married. I mean, we took Ben
everywhere with us, and it took me a few months
to get over my own insecurities about what people were
looking at and saying about me being with Ben, until
I decided that was cheap and gross and I need
to be a champion for Ben. So I have a
(26:37):
very personal relationship with challenged folks. It takes a really
special mindset to want to work with people like Ben
and just talk about it a little bit.
Speaker 2 (26:56):
Yeah, so everything you say hits home. Well, I don't
have a family connection these these guys. You know, my
phone's NonStop. I'm sure I have text right now, since
we've sat down, they're they're I'm a part of their family.
They're all parts of mine. So I have I'm the
coordinator for our county Special Olympics and we have sixty
seven registered athletes in a.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
Little old place like that. Yeah, how far of a
geographical area do these sixty seven people come from.
Speaker 2 (27:24):
It's one county, just one county, one county.
Speaker 1 (27:26):
Yeah, one small rural county.
Speaker 2 (27:28):
It's a rural county.
Speaker 1 (27:29):
Sixty seven special needs and special ops. Go ahead.
Speaker 2 (27:33):
And so we have all kinds of different sports. And
when I first started, all they had was bowling and
once in a while they had a basketball team. But
so we have lots of things. My thought was, we've
got to offer more because right, bullying is not right
for everybody. You know, you have eight year olds coming
in who want to do things. And so we just
added sport after support after sports that we can be
more inclusive, because that's what we're trying to do, right,
(27:55):
have inclusiveivity, inclusivity, And we've added unified sports, which for
us has been phenomenal. Unified meeting your traditional athletes from
high school or college or adulthood. Your traditional athletes play
with alongside our Special Olympics athletes and that is where
we get We have so much fun because friendships are
built and communities built and you're not just marked into
(28:19):
one spot, right, So then you see out in public
and you see these and it just brings awareness to
the community. With our unified sports, which has been ough.
Just I'm just so proud of them. I'm proud of
all of our sports with the unified ones because you
see the high school kids come in and get it
and they under oh okay, you know, and it's been
that's been one of the biggest joys of my life.
(28:41):
What I get back from this is ten times more
than I'll ever give in. And when people are like,
it's amazing that you do that, it chocks me because
what I get it's almost selfish. It just so so
much into my life. It's phenomenal.
Speaker 1 (28:54):
Do you I'd like you to speak to what happens
viscerally inside you when you see people who are blessed
with all of their faculties ten fingers, ten toes and
a good sound mind decide it's okay to belittle someone
(29:20):
who's special needs. Because it happens, and I forget it
happens in jokes, it happens in language, it'll happen in
the old curl up your hands and you know, act
like that stuff. It absolutely is revolting to me what
happens inside you when you see that, given that you
spend your life around special needs people, caring for them
(29:42):
and building relationships.
Speaker 2 (29:43):
With them, Like I said, because there's so much joy
and there's and I see the work that goes in
with our folks, and they're doing all the things right,
they're going they're doing all the things right that I
forget that it happens. And I just had it happen.
I had a populated email that came to me that
someone can go in and fill out a form if
they're interested and they don't know anything about our program.
(30:04):
So I was like, oh, so I got it populated
to my email. I called them and it was a
high school kid whose friends had played a joke on
him because they said, ha ha, he qualifies. And he's like,
my friends are playing a joke. I'm really sorry, and
it just my gut, it just in my heart like
what I don't even know how to put into words.
The disrespect is so real and it's it's disheartening. It's
(30:29):
it's you're talking about some really good people, but they're
they're human, right, So they're human. Sometimes they're not like
you and I sometimes were jerks right, well, at least
I am. But these are human beings living their best life,
doing their best, you know. And to see somebody so
minimize what they bring to this world is makes me
(30:50):
physically ill. Me too physically And.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
What kind of crap do you have in your own
life that you feel like it's a valuable use of
your time to detegrate someone who is not as blessed
as you are.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Honestly, I'm sorry for them, you know, to be so
uncomfortable with who you are that that makes you feel better. Yeah,
that's a tough.
Speaker 1 (31:18):
Life to live, you know what we say in the South. No,
bless your heart, yea, bless their hearts for being so small. Okay,
I got that off my chest and I enjoyed it.
Did you enjoy it? I hope? I hope somebody listening
here is taking stock of that and make sure that
I went to I was involved in an organization who said,
(31:43):
obviously you can't lie steed or chill, lie steet or
chill lie, cheat or still yeah, and then it was
just as big of an infraction against the rules if
you knew somebody was lying, cheating, and stealing and didn't
speak up. I think in this little conversation we have
(32:08):
great if you don't do that, but if you suffer
people who do it and are unwilling to speak up
against it on the behalf of someone who is not
as fortunate as you, I think it's just as bad.
And so that's why I'm saying this is I don't
think everybody listen to us makes fun of special needs people.
But if you're around people that make fun of special
(32:29):
needs people and you turn a blind eye to it,
and my opinion, you're just as guilty. Speak up on
behalf of the most needy among.
Speaker 2 (32:37):
Us, for sure.
Speaker 1 (32:38):
For sure, we'll be right back. So you spend your life.
When you showed up, they had bowling and now they
(32:59):
have like sixteen sports.
Speaker 2 (33:02):
Well we have not sixteen. We have two different basketball teams,
we have flag football, we.
Speaker 1 (33:08):
Have bowling football.
Speaker 2 (33:10):
Yeah, we just started this past year. It was a
huge chick.
Speaker 1 (33:14):
So much.
Speaker 2 (33:15):
And our coaches, you know, all of our coaches are volunteers.
So I'm surrounded by these humans who are on the
same page as me, like they're there to just love
their athletes and to coach. It's like our coaches don't
mess around. They're there to coach. We have competitive we
have unified cheer and a traditional chaer team, which are
both competitive teams. We have unified volleyball, we have unified golf.
(33:37):
I don't know if I named them all, but we
just we just keep our athletes really busy.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
And we said not sixteen, but you're already up to nine.
Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah, yeah, questrian. We start a questrian too, which is
questrian Yeah, which is really neat. We were able to
I knew continuing to do this. We know we're I
don't want to miss a demographic and so our higher
needs and we keep that for them. That that's because
it's very expensive. That's where there are place to be
and it's been in life change. I have families. What
this does for our athletes is amazing and I never
(34:04):
want toke away, but what it does for their families.
They get to watch their child be the star to be,
to do the things that traditional parents get to see
their kids do in which I lived for when my
kids were They.
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Also get to watch their kids smile and have relationships,
and we.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Had one speak for the first time during a question
for the first time. I mean it is. We had
one girl who with the equestrian team. It's called stemming,
which I don't know if you're familiar with, but she
holds stuffed animals and she just does this. And these
stuffed animals are at school, they never go down, they
never go down. Now a year later, when she walks
into that barn, her stuffies go down and she grabs
(34:42):
her horse, and that's huge. It doesn't seem like a
huge thing, right, but you have parents over sobbing because
she put them down and her horse is everything. It's
just changed lives. I have parents tell me the only
nights their child sleeps for more than six hours are
on the nights they have their special Olympics event. It's
life changing for families too, not just not just our athletes.
Speaker 1 (35:05):
So people listen to us would think this is an
episode about the special Olympics and special needs people.
Speaker 2 (35:10):
I could talk about it all day, but guess.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
What it is not. That is just what you do. Yeah,
and the story about your upbringing is just where you
came from. That I think all culminates into the crux
of why you're here today, and I want to tell
you a little bit about why this story is so
(35:37):
personal to me. When the Memphis Grizzlies moved to the
FedEx Forum maybe fifteen years ago, I was introduced to
this guy named Mike who was a C level guy there,
and we formed a really good friendship. He's this Canadian
(35:58):
guy moved to Memphis who was involved in professional sports
at all kinds of levels, and we really did we
for himed a really good good friendship. And then he
moved off to Phoenix to become I think the chief
administrative officer or financial officer, revenue officer something for the
Phoenix something codes they have.
Speaker 4 (36:19):
So he's usually been chief revenue officer, chief revenue like
the Sons and the SuperSonics and the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Speaker 1 (36:25):
Yeah, I mean he's been Mike was all over the place.
It's been a big executive in professional sports all over
the place. And then when he resigned from that, this
cat moved back to Memphis. And the reason moved back
to Memphis is he loves Memphis. This Canadian that could
probably live anywhere, and I think he's got a Master's
and some stuff. He's really bright. Anyway, Mike and I
(36:48):
became buddies, and over the last few years, Mike's been
incredibly involved in Memphis. We have this new amazing tennis
center that he kind of spearheaded happening. And when I
say tennis center, the University of Memphis teams play in it.
It's massive. It's one of the largest municipal tennis centers
(37:10):
in the world. It's brand new, it's got indoor courts outdoor,
it's gorgeous. And then I think the second largest municipal
indoor outdoor basketball arena that can host National AAU Games
was built in the middle of Memphis. But it's a
(37:32):
dual or a multi purpose place that you can host
national chess championships, you can host e sports championships, which
is a big deal. And he's a multi million dollar thing.
He was the spearhead of that. The Liberty Bowl is
now sponsored by Simmons Bank. He was instrumental in that
the Cook Convention Center, a big convention center downtown, got
(37:56):
renamed Rights. He was center that. I mean, he's just done.
He's a Memphis transplant who has done stuff literally all
over our city to improve it, and everywhere he goes,
he improves our city. And he is my buddy, and
I love the guy, Mike Humes. So you know, as
(38:18):
you do in your friends, and you go to dinner
with your wives and stuff, you talk about life. And
Mike told me about his kids, and he told me
about this one son he had that had some problems
at birth and and because of the because of the
treatment he had to have, he lost his hearing and
(38:41):
had renal failure and whatever. And so I knew about
his son, Scott, and I don't know, six months to
a year ago, we went to lunch and he said
that Scott's kidney had had failed. He was being kept
(39:04):
alive by dialysis. And this is after he told me
that the guy got leukemia. And was I'm just like,
how much can one father talk about how much his
son had been dealt I mean, deafness, then a kidney
(39:25):
transplant as a young kid, and then renal failure again
and lymphoma and he beat that. And I'm thinking, this
sickly boy in a bubble. And what I find out
is despite all of this, this guy's gone to college.
He's playing on US hockey teams. They've won a national
(39:46):
hockey something in Ohio. And you know, this kid, despite
having his hearing taking from him at a young age,
and having kidney transplants when he's like thirteen or fourteen
or whatever, and then having lymphoma and everything, he still
(40:06):
ends up playing hockey at a high level and competing
in national everything. And I'm just like, what a testament
to this guy. That's the story for me. That's it. Mike,
my buddy, who has this sick kid who's overcoming a
ton of stuff and it is just an impressive kid.
And then we're having lunch and he says he's in
renal failure and if he doesn't get a kidney, he's
(40:27):
gonna die. And you can see then, as any parent
would have. You could see the concern, but you could
also see the fight in his eyes. And you know,
what do you say to a friend like that, other
than if there's anything I can do, let me know.
(40:48):
I'll pray for you, I love you. Do you need
shoulder to crime or just somebody to talk to holler?
And then a not a short time long ago, he
said he was going up to Oho to be with
Scott because he was getting his kidney and it was like, Wow, amazing,
(41:09):
you know, and then and he didn't say anything else.
And then not too long ago, he told me about
this thing that the medical center at Ohio State did
and this chain thing and how it all happened, and
that it wouldn't have happened if it wasn't for this innocuous,
(41:33):
unknown woman who didn't have a single relationship to anybody,
and all of these ten people's lives who were saved
by giving kidneys, who just out of the goodness of
her heart, said you know what, I have two of
these things. I could donate one and save a life,
and I'm going to do it. And Sam, that's you.
Speaker 2 (41:58):
Wow.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
I get tears even saying it. Sam. It is the
most selfless thing I've ever heard of. So I've revealed it,
but I would love for you to take us through why.
I'm sure by now you're where versed in how this
chain of events happens at Ohio State and explained that
(42:21):
incredible work, how many lives were changed and saved, how
many people were involved. I know that you believe in
silent giving, and I know you're not a chest thumping,
look at me kind of girl, but you're gonna have
to do that a little bit with me to tell
the story. And I am just in awe of your selflessness.
(42:46):
So why in the world are you cutting your body
open for people you don't know? And how did all
this work?
Speaker 2 (42:53):
You know? I've been asked that a lot in the
last two months, not quite two months, and I still
failed to properly articulate unless you understand that still small voice.
And I don't know how to properly explain it to
people who don't get it, but maybe you will. I'll
do my best. We've all see online. You know, somebody
(43:17):
knows somebody who needs a gidney, right you see? And
on backs of cars, you see all those things. And
I've seen those for years, just like everybody else has.
And I didn't have necessarily a person in mind, but
I remember, I remember where I was, and I failed it.
I wasn't around any of those things, but feeling it
in my soul. You need to get tested to donate
(43:39):
your kidney. And I don't know anybody in my family
who you know, has such things. But to explain that
feeling is I can't, except you know, you have to
on the same token. I processed it for a couple
of days making sure it wasn't the same thing, making
sure it wasn't a you know, when you're in the
social work world, you can be accused of wanting to
(43:59):
save the world. I wanted to make sure that wasn't
that feeling that it was a god thing. So I
wait about a while.
Speaker 1 (44:05):
You wanted to make sure that, in the weirdest way,
it wasn't selfish, but it was a God thing.
Speaker 2 (44:11):
Yeah, I want how in the.
Speaker 1 (44:13):
World can be given a kidney away be selfish?
Speaker 2 (44:17):
I wanted to make sure that it wasn't a thing
that just I wanted to do. I needed to make
sure that it was a God Are you telling me
to do this? Because this came out of nowhere for me,
absolutely nowhere, and so I really wanted to dissect it
and to make things. Have I do other things for
other people that I that I just feel like I
(44:41):
want to. But this was going to affect more than
just me. This was going to affect my job, my athletes,
my family, you know. So I needed to make sure.
So I presented it to my husband about a week
after I've been praying about it, like, but this was
not going away. It was getting louder and louder and louder.
It wasn't and I, you know, and he's so used
to me saying, hey, I really feel like we need
(45:01):
to do this.
Speaker 1 (45:02):
And to be clear, you knew nobody know nobody.
Speaker 2 (45:06):
I don't know these people exist, Like what you just
told me about this. This is the first I've heard
this Scott story to that extent.
Speaker 1 (45:12):
Really. Yeah, I'm glad to share that with you.
Speaker 2 (45:14):
Yeah, I.
Speaker 1 (45:17):
Hopefully it hopefully it helps you understand the impact of
your selflessness.
Speaker 2 (45:24):
Yeah, it's it's beautiful. It's not me with the story
is beautiful. And so my husband is pretty used to it.
And he's like, well, okay, so we So.
Speaker 1 (45:32):
I almost to know your husband did not say that.
Speaker 5 (45:35):
That's just there's no way, okay, Sam, there's no way
you walked in and said, hey, honey, I hope the
harvest is going, well, I'm gonna give away a kidney
and he goes, Okay, that's not how that happened.
Speaker 2 (45:47):
You're right, you're right, Okay, how did that happen? Okay?
So I said, I'm going to reach out and get
more information, and he's like and he is like, okay, Well,
the good news is Ohio State sends this video and
not only you have to watch it, but your caretaker
has to watch it. He would be my caretaker in
this situation. And they do an excellent job with the video. Again,
(46:08):
he didn't say okay, he's but he is very used
to in these last few decades me saying I've got this,
I've got this feeling, I've got this, and he's so
used to that that he takes it with a grain
of salt. So because the things have happened before, I
was like, Okay, that's not gonna work. That's not what
we're supposed to do. So he just takes it with
(46:29):
a grain of salt and says, okay, I'll watch the
video with you. He's this, mate, Yeah, yeah, my. You know,
we're going to regional basketball tournament next weekend and my
basketball coaches can't be there for other reasons. And by
the way, babe, your coach a basketball Okay, this is
this is his life. He knows this, he knows he's signed,
he knew what he signed up for.
Speaker 1 (46:53):
And that concludes part one of my conversation with Sam
Fletterer John and guys, you don't want to us Part two.
That's now available to listen to, where special guest joins Sam. Together, guys,
we can change this country, and it starts with you.
I'll see you in Part two.
Host
Bill Courtney
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