Boots' Heart Condition

Mindy and Boots talk about Boots' heart condition and when he realized there was a problem.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
They say silence is golden. Notin our case. We never want to
hear silence when Raw is on theair. Hey, everybody, welcome to
another edition of Raw. Do youget that thing work in Boots? No,
it's stopped at one. I don'tknow what's going on. He's trying
to Every Sunday during Raw from twountil four he does a Facebook lived brings

(00:22):
this studio live on his Facebook page. But something's all messed up again.
I've shut my phone on and off. It says, can't start live video
of the internet. So sorry,folks, shot to listen like old school.
So we have so many things totalk about. We are so glad
that you are with us on asunny, warm, beautiful Sunday afternoon.
First, first of all, Ilook over at Boots and half of his

(00:43):
face is gone, Well most ofyour beard. That beard takes up a
big chunk of you. When someone'slooking at your face, they mostly see
that big, long white beard.How long was it? It was over
eight inches. So I've had sevennow, and that's over seventy thousand dollars
for Honor Flight seven years seven.Did you ever think when you started this
that you were going to raise moneyas soon as someone cuts off your beard

(01:08):
that you would raise that much moneyfor on or five, Well, it's
a great idea, but did youthink it would really work and did you
think you would collect that much money? One twenty three five. I don't
know when it first started. Itwas a joke. Randy and I am
my old producer and my co host. We're like, you know, everything
looks stupid. I was doing asa joke because Steve Germaine and my first
wife hated it. It all lookstupid. So I was this antagonizing them

(01:30):
just for you know, funny littleyou know, just little jokes. Well,
then on or flight night we teamedup in two seventeen and someone said,
if you grow that for the wholeyear, I'll pay you for it.
Okay, so with someone else's ideaand then we just jumped on it,
and then we all started joking aboutit. In the first year it
was like fourteen thousand dollars and thenone more other So we have callers.

(01:53):
We've had twice now big dollar funcome in that we didn't know the people.
One year a guy wrote ten thousandour check. We still don't know
who was. He sent a cashiercheck in for ten grain or whatever,
and we never did. I thinkit was Steve Germaine on that one,
but who knows. He will neveradmit it. But it's been a busy
weekend. You're shaving off your beard, you know. Before we get into

(02:14):
what we eats we're doing over theweekend, I want to ask you too,
as I look across this desk inthe studio at sixtend of ETVN,
when did you actually go gray?And when did you lose your hair?
Because you're really kind of young,did you did you lose it or were
you starting to lose it and youthought I'm just going to shave it all
off. I've ever known you withhair. No, my Earley twenties I

(02:35):
had the reverse mohawk I had.I still parted like my seventies feather,
okay, but it was just gettingthin, thin, thin. And when
my daughter was born, when Nikkiwas born twenty six and a half years
ago, I just went to onecut on one level bur cut okay.
And and my boss, I hatemost of my stuff has been vengeance the
boss. I hated it, right, It's not a good way to live.

(02:58):
Yeah. The guy a record thatI did not like that he if
something ever happens to him and livemy life for vengeance. No. On
that one. He was the worstboss in history and he ran Ryker and
he really was very I mean,I don't hate a lot of people,
but if he's on fire, I'dtinkle next to him. But that's that
cool. So then I shaved myhead and started a trend. We were

(03:19):
in a wedding too, and alot of us had the Burke cuts and
the bride was kind of a nastylady. So I said, okay,
you want to see bad heads.So we went down to a barber and
his gay dude shaved our heads baldand you never went back. He never
went back. I mean, Iknow it sounds terrible, and the fact
that he was gay is no bigdeal, but he made it a point.
We had what did you have tosay? He was We were joking

(03:39):
about it the whole way. Ifyou would have been there and seeing the
environments, Oh my god. Hewas so excited that he got Did you
know that he'd changed your life forever? Yeah? Yeah, he I mean
he had openly admitted that he wasso impressed and gonna tell his gay friends
that he shaved eight study looking dudesthat I just kind of wondered because we've
never really talked about it before.If you look at boots as pictures from

(04:00):
back of the day, you hada whole head of hair. Oh I
was a different person. Yeah,I was a different You would have not
liked me. I was cocky.I made a long wait, you're different.
No, I'm happy, go luckycocky. Now I'm jokingly cocky.
But back then, I mean Iwore a hide dollar suits, I wore
real expensive shoes. I was runningthe biggest dealership in the United States.

(04:21):
I was one of the five uppermanagement. I was making so much money
I couldn't see straight. And nowhe doesn't brag, he's not cocky,
he's no, I didn't know.I'm very lucky in life. That that
I woke up and here's what reallyhappened. Then, my mom died No.
Five and I was super My daddied when I was twenty one.
My mom died No. Five andI was close to my mother. And

(04:41):
my brother died in No. Sevenfrom a massive heart attack. And then
my best friend I killed on amotorcycle. And that's when I said,
that's a lot to handle it.Then you just said I said, heck
with it. I said other words. But I'm just going to chill and
I'm going to take auto smarts bythe bull by the horns and do it.
I just rolled the dice, andI doubt I mean, I was
so many times I was close tolosing everything. Again, Well, we

(05:04):
want to talk about so many timesin your life when you're close to when
I'm talking to all of you thelistener, so many times in your life
something major happens and for some reason, by the grace of God, you're
given another chance at life. Thatrecently is what happened to Boots, and
we need to talk about it.I did want to wish my father in
law, Dick Cortocracks the whin he'scoached in the history of high school basketball

(05:27):
across the state of Ohio, eighthundred ninety wins. You know, we
went to Colorado with his family todo like an early birthday celebration because he
just turned ninety. Well as actualbirthday was this week a few days ago
day, so the family got togetherI think it was Thursday. So the
family all got together yesterday on Saturdayto celebrate. Yeah, yeah, it
was eighth or ninth. I'm sureit's the twelfth, So that's funny.

(05:47):
He just turned sixty. So anyway, we're I'm sitting there talking to mister
Kay and you know, he's alwaysso appreciative of the book The King that
I wrote for him, because itwasn't just about his basketball career. It
was about his life and his familyand his faith. And we always talk
about that because he, oh,he always is so appreciative of it.
And he goes, you know,Mindy, I coached for fifty six years.

(06:09):
Why'd I do that? And Istart laughing so hard. I'm like,
really, if you had to dodifferently in your life, is there
something in your life when you lookback, would you live the same way?
Would you do anything differently? AndI asked him that, I said,
knowing what you know now, allthose years of coaching, becoming the
winningest coach in the history of highschool basketball across the state of Ohio,
would you have changed that? Andhe said, no, no, you

(06:31):
can't. I mean that's who heis now. And when you reach a
certain point in your life and you'vecreated such a legacy, when you live
to be ninety or live to befifty, you still leave behind some type
of legacy. The reason why Ibring this up because Boots had a major
scare. Really, when you talkabout your heart and when you have heart
problems, for anybody across the board, it can be life changing. And

(06:55):
I want you to tell everybody exactlywhat you went through. I know when
I wasn't here last week, youtouched on a little. Yeah, we
didn't hardly talk about. I wantto savor for you because you actually came
and visited me and my other favoritebuddy, Randy. You're wait, wait,
wait, wait, what do youmean? Actually, of course it
felt good. It feels good whenyou when you think in your life.
As you get older, like whatyou're saying. Before we got a break,

(07:16):
you you change a lot and youlook back and I have no regrets.
I just have things that I wouldhave done differently. My regrets helped
me make a bet, make mea better person. So me being cocky
and that bone head back in thecar business back in the day. I'm
glad I went through that then,so I can fix it now. Well,
when we come up after the break, I want you to tell people
exactly what you went through because youhad to call the emergency squad and it

(07:39):
was a scare. And I toldBoots when I went to see him in
the hospital when Randy I went tovisit them, like, you're going to
have to change your lifestyle and Godhas given him another chance. So what
do you do with that chance?Do you say, what the heck,
I'm just going to live in mylife the way I do? Or do
you take this seriously and start doingthings a little differently. But you need
to tell everybody exactly what you wentthere because you were scared, right,

(08:01):
yes, Boots, you could befree. I was like, this is
it to your car? I hadcrawled on my cars, were about scratching
my rocker pan when I was gettingout. But that's what he was scared.
But so so real quick though,as you get older, you have
ten close knit friends and ten peoplethat you trust. Yeah, you have
five hundred friends, but you getdown that they gets down the singles and

(08:22):
doubles and maybe I'm very fortunate Ihave like six or seven really really close
friends. So you know, youcan't say you have a best friend anymore.
But it's good to know when peoplecome see at the hospital that you
know who your friends are so thankyou for that. I don't think you
put a number on how many yougot friends. You're very fortunate, but
but I don't think. I don'tthink anybody can put a number. You
know, you can't say I'm goingto cut you off because I'm only allowed

(08:43):
ten great friends. Oh no,I'm not saying that. I'm just yeah,
let's go to break. Well.This is raw with many and Boots
on news Radio six ten, alwayspowered by and protected by a tattletail dot
com. All right, folks listening, what has happened in your life that
made you stop and think, ohmy gosh, I could have died for
some reason. God has given mea second chance in life. So what

(09:05):
do I do with that second chance? If that has happened to you,
let us know your story at sixone four eight two one nine eight eight
six. It could have been acar crash that you were involved in.
You walk away and you're thinking,I can't believe I just walked out of
that car crash. Maybe a treecame tumbling down on your house sometimes day
day I believe that, and Iagree with that. So the same kind

(09:28):
of thing. I look at itlike that, Boots, because I really
do think that it could have beena lot worse for you, and I
think you got lucky if you didn'ttake yourself to the hospital or call the
ambulance when you did explain to everybodywhat exactly happened. Two Mondays ago,
two weeks tomorrow, I was atmy studio and I was cutting a new
massy spot and I couldn't get mybreath, and Baker looked at me and

(09:50):
said, what's wrong with you?I said, I don't know how I
have my breath the last few days, and I had a lot of events
last week and I did overdo itlike I always do. And I'm sitting
there and I said, man,I said Scott. So I took a
took a second, got my breath, knocked the commercial while jumped in my
car, and I said, Igotta get my car home because I didn't
want to leave my car anywhere.I was one of my newer cars that
I'm in love with, and soI jump in it and I'm like,

(10:11):
okay. Well, then my leftleg started going a little note, shoot,
I'm having a heart attack. SoI thought, well, I can't
get the car home. I can'tcall the squad and ain't come pick me
up. So called Stacy. Shecalled the squad. I pulled it in
the driveway, parked the car inthe garage, crawled out of my car
because I mean, I could notbreathe. And then the Westerville medics were

(10:33):
awesome, awesome, awesome, awesome, and the one guy listens to us,
which was cool, but he itwas I don't know if it was
scary as much as I've always hada FIB, the thing that bothers me
to plain to everybody what a FIBis for people who don't know, Oh,
your heart just gets out of rhythm, it's like, and then how
do you get it back? Theyshock you, they kill you, and

(10:54):
then bring you back. And you'vehad to go through that how many times?
I'll you this is the first time, because the last time I had
this happen in twenty seventeen, notthis bad. They went to shock me
and went back in the rhythm.So I keep going back in the rhythm.
But this current time, this lasttime it happened last two weeks,
so I ago it was out ofrhythm so bad. My heart rate was
one fifty eight or one fifty fourjumping around there and I guess you're supposed

(11:18):
to be in the nineties. Youknow that. I don't know. So
I mean, they're giving me nitropills under my tongue, and I could
tell these squad guys were concerned becauseof the amount of heart rate I was
at. So they get me SaintAnn's, which they did a good job.
But the one nurse I could notstand. But that's a whole nother
story. But I get there andthe doctors were great, and then next

(11:39):
morning they took me down. Theyhad to shock me twice. So basically
I've been dead twice. Now.I never thought I ever say that.
They literally like stop your heart,and then they fire you back up and
then it gets in the rhythm,so it's like jumping. Are you conscious
through all that? Are you now? They put they put you out and
then they shock you. But theworst thing is they the one doctor was
smart enough going one down through yourthroat to look at the back your heart.

(12:00):
We see all the front of yourheart. It looks great. I
have no cloggage, no stens,nothing. But it's a good thing they
did that because they found out Iwas born without one of I call it
my flapper there's a bigger name forit, but basically, in my heart,
there's three. There's all your littleyou know, your heart controls what
blood goes where. And one ofmy one of my flappers, was never
there. From when I was born, I've always been short of breath.

(12:24):
I've been checked for asthma back inthe day, but I've just dealt with
it my whole life. I justcan't believe you're fifty five years old and
just now found out. Yeah,just caught up finally, finally in my
heart's like, oh hey, yougotta looked down here, so you know.
But it is scary because if youlook across the country right now,
extremely healthy athletic people are going intocardiac arrest, falling over, some are

(12:46):
dying, some are surviving, andyou look at that big picture and you
look at what you would just experienced. Now they have at least an answer.
Okay, you were born like this, we just fund better. I
thought it was something. What changesin your life? Do you have to
change your diet? Do you haveto exercise? I've been on your butt
since I anything sizing more. I'mnot allowed to do anything until they get

(13:07):
it all planed out. And thenthey'll have a plane and then I have
to go like walking like this,like that. But but the thing you
stick to it boots because your lifestyleis so crazy. I know that.
And that's what I mean. Somethingsomewhere, something's going to give. You
can't keep living but doing, doing, doing, doing, eating the way
you eat, drinking the way youdrink. Once said week, I do

(13:28):
like drinking. I miss, That'swhat I'm saying. I have any beer
and no salt. The salt's killingme. Listen, no salt. Yeah,
but I want and you've got tochange things. But everything you like
you got to give up. That'swhat's bad about But you know what you're
doing, you're exchanging that for yourlife. Yeah, you had a big
wake up call because for some reason, God said I'm not quite done with
you yet. You know, there'sstill a purpose that you are hopefully trying

(13:54):
to accomplish while you're on earth.And yesterday you look at it like that
at all. Oh yeah, Oh, I'm very thankful. And I think
I got a lot of guardian angels. I think I'm lucky to have my
parents up above. But and mybrother and my best friend, like we
talked about but but I will sayyesterday advances. One thing I did different
that I normally don't do is Ididn't get excited. I don't get upset
like in the last two weeks.I haven't been freaking out like I always

(14:16):
do. Well, that's good,mind over matter. You had a road
rage incident where it could have beena lot worse. I was nice,
Boots, Are you a new Boots? Yeah, I am so. But
then yesterday I stuck in the trailer. Well, I stuck in my truck
and took a little quick nap.I took plenty of time to sit down.
I didn't overdo it. I tooknaps. I go home. I

(14:39):
go to bed early. The nightbefore Friday night, I went to bed
at nine o'clock. I haven't goneto bed at nine o'clock since ever.
Dana, you have about forty seconds. But do you want to say anything
to Boots. Did you have asimilar situation happened to you? No?
Well, why I heard this happento him? I called him the Cleveland
Collins, and I gave him thetelephone number because this is the fact entirely.

(15:00):
I mean, they say the thirdtime can be a charm, which
would not be a good charm.I hope he takes that number and calls
and gets up there. Coats.They are rated the best in the United
State States for a cardiovactrical treatment.But yes, and I agree with you,
except for one thing. Doctor Cohenis such a good friend of mindy
and eyes, and he took me, got me in with Matheny. And
I can tell you this, andI've been I wanted in Metheny. Matheni's

(15:24):
one of the best cardiologists in Columbus. I mean, he's well recognized,
and I know Cleveland's great, butI'm going to give Matheni first. But
let me tell you this with you. I called in there and I said,
can you make my appointment a littleearlier? And she goes, sir,
I have no idea how you're evenon the list. There's hundreds of
people ahead of you, so youmust know somebody. So doctor doctor Cohen
hooked me up. So that's allI could say. Dana, thanks though,
for helping Boots out there. AndBoots, I'm glad you opened up

(15:46):
with everybody about the truth about whathappened to you. But I really do
hope that you take a big lookat things. Yeah, and I will
say this though, I can saythis before we got a break. If
I die today, I've hit everygoal and everything I've ever wanted to do
in life, except for my grandbaby. I want to watch her grow up.
Well, that is a good wayto live though. You know,
if you if you die tomorrow you'resatisfied. That's a great way to live.

(16:07):
So what happened to State Issue one? And where do we go now?
We're going to talk about it withstate Representative Befally. You're coming up
next Row Many Boots powered by tattletaildot Com on NewsRadio six ten WTVN