My Day at the Culture War Races

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Clovis, California, became the epicenter of our nation's culture war
over this past weekend. As a boy, ab Hernandez was
allowed to compete in and dominate his various events in
the California State High School Track and field competition overseen

(00:22):
by CIF the California Interscholastic Federation, which is the governing
body for California high school sports. Now, I was there
for pretty much the whole weekend, everything that happened from
the Thursday press conference held by Clovis City Council member
and Mayor pro tem of Clovis, Diane Pierce, all the

(00:46):
way to the end of the track meet Saturday night
in the midst of you know, a super enormous heat wave,
extremely hot temperatures even for Fresno.

Speaker 2 (01:00):
For the end of February.

Speaker 1 (01:03):
I think I sweat out over the course of Friday
and Saturday, about four times my body weight worth of water.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
So I want to go through the whole thing.

Speaker 1 (01:13):
Now, let's start with the actual controversy itself and the
legal setting. So California has had laws on the books,
laws that were passed in twenty thirteen that went into
effecting twenty fourteen and under Jerry Brown, that basically say,

(01:35):
in California public high schools, sports and other accommodations like bathrooms,
locker rooms, et cetera, are on the basis of gender identity,
not biological sex. So if a boy thinks he's a girl,
he gets to play girls basketball, girls water polo, girls swimming,

(01:56):
girls track and field. He thereby also gets to use
the girl's locker room, the girl's bathroom, the girls showers.
This has been on the books in California again since
twenty fourteen, so that's California law. President Trump in early

(02:19):
February issued an executive order to protect girls' sports, and
the Trump administration basically put forward the argument that Title
nine itself demands that boys not play girls' sports, that
the presence of male athletes is demeaning and insulting to

(02:43):
women in their athletic competitions, and specifically that their presence
within locker rooms is a threatening and endangering thing. So
Title nine would demand adequate fair treatment of women within sports.
Title nine demands that men not play, and the Trump

(03:05):
administration basically said, we are going to engage in Title
nine enforcement efforts against body athletic governing bodies that do
that persist in letting men play women's sports. The NCAA
pretty much immediately complied almost instantaneously after the Trump administration

(03:27):
issued this executive order. The CIF, however, did not. The
CIF basically said, well, no, we're going to have We're
gonna we're going to follow California state law.

Speaker 2 (03:41):
So the CIF did not comply with the Trump executive order.

Speaker 1 (03:47):
Now, over the course of last week, CIF wound up
changing their policies like twice in two different ways, and
basically what they ended at was a policy that's not
really in conformity with the Trump executive order because they
are still allowing males to compete in competition alongside female competitors.

(04:12):
They have also done nothing to address problems like accommodations, bathrooms, showers,
locker rooms, which frankly like as as much as I
think it is bad and unfair and tears of unfairness here,
t I e r s of unfairness here. As unfair
as I think it is that boys are stealing the
spotlight from girls and getting awarded alongside girls.

Speaker 2 (04:36):
Or could be taking opportunities from girls.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
The most egregious harm of such policies is the violations
of women's privacy that it entails men using women's bathrooms,
men changing in women's locker rooms, men showering in women's
locker rooms. When you're talking about high school, also, let's
remember not just focusing on Pacific athletic event like this

(05:02):
Track and Feel meet, but just in general, you're at
a high school, you train, you know, you've got a
team training. This same team like a basketball team. Let's
say might have a fourteen year old freshman.

Speaker 2 (05:23):
Girl.

Speaker 1 (05:26):
The girl's basketball team could include a fourteen year old
freshman girl and a eighteen year old male who identifies
as a girl, who are expected now to shower together.
Let's let that sink in. Okay, and you could have

(05:47):
you're talking about an adult male who might be a
high school senior who identifies as a woman. But it's
just identify as there doesn't need to be any hardware update.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Let me if I can put it delicately. Okay.

Speaker 1 (06:08):
This might be someone who has not had any surgery,
any kind of plastic surgery to make his body appear
more like the body of a woman. This might not
even be someone who's on hormones to try to make
their appearance more like a woman. You can genuinely have
a situation where an eighteen year old male is showering

(06:33):
alongside fourteen year old females. So that was not at
all addressed by the CIF policy. So CIF made their
policies less egregious.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
How do they do that?

Speaker 1 (06:46):
So what CIF did over the course of last week
is basically, say, a biological boy is allowed to compete
in the girls event on the basis of a claim
gender identity. But basically they're not going to take any
spot from a girl. So no girl is going to

(07:07):
fail to qualify for the next round if they are
beat out for a spot by a transgender competitor. Okay,
so if a transgender competitor makes the qualifying time or
jump or whatever, instead of let's say bringing ten girls
to the finalists, we're now going to bring eleven.

Speaker 2 (07:28):
Right. Also, no girl is going to miss out.

Speaker 1 (07:32):
On her final result or spot on the basis of
a transgender competitor. So if the transgender person gets first place,
the next ranked girl is also awarded first place, and
then the next girl who is third as far as
her time or distance or whatever, is awarded second place,
and so on. So no girl's going to miss out

(07:53):
on a spot because of a transgender competitor. No girl
is going to miss out on a ranking because of
a transgender competitor, which really kind of makes it seem like,
what the heck are we doing here? This is basically
just something to gratify this child's ego, or this to
make this child feel good.

Speaker 2 (08:13):
Now, Trevor actually said it best.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
He had me on the show on Thursday and we
talked about it, and Trevor just off the top of
his head and he said, I could use this line.

Speaker 2 (08:25):
So I'm going to use this line.

Speaker 1 (08:26):
Basically said, so Aby Hernandez, this boy who's playing in
the girls events, he's basically in a phantom league of
his own. And that's exactly what it is. He's more
or less competing in this phantom league. And you saw
that during the track meet last weekend.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
He wins.

Speaker 1 (08:45):
First place in the triple jump by a massive margin.

Speaker 2 (08:50):
But another girl.

Speaker 1 (08:54):
From Albany, California is also awarded first place, even though
she jumped you know, almost two feet, not as far
as Hernandez did in the triple jump. The next girl,
who had the third longest jump is awarded second place.

Speaker 2 (09:10):
And so on.

Speaker 1 (09:15):
Now I'm gonna take you kind of day by day
over the course of the show.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
I'm going to take you guys kind of.

Speaker 1 (09:21):
Day by day throughout the week, and I'm going to
start I'll start with Thursday. So Thursday was the press
conference that took place at the Clovis Veterans' Memorial Building
that was convened by Diane Pierce. And I just want
to say this, Diane Pierce stood tall this whole week

(09:42):
as the obvious leader locally on this issue. Now it
was in Clovis, in the city of Clovis. One could
argue that it sort of made sense for a City
of Clovis official to be the one leading the charge,
but I don't know that that's necessarily true. Anyone could

(10:02):
have taken the lead on this. An assembly member, of state, senator,
a congressman, county supervisor, and certainly a lot of local
politicians participated in her efforts and were supportive. And I
appreciate all the people who were there backing what Diane does.
But the fact remains she was the one who was

(10:24):
convening these press conferences and bringing the most attention to this,
getting the attention of the Trump administration to focus on
what was going on. She was one sort of convening this,
working with Vince Fong's office to alert people at the
federal level, etc. So Diane Pierce calls this press conference,
and I'll say this, I think she's an extremely talented politician.

(10:52):
I think she's a great public speaker, and I think
the future is quite bright for her if she chooses
to pursue some higher office.

Speaker 2 (11:04):
Beyond the Clovis City Council.

Speaker 1 (11:06):
And there are probably going to be some opportunities like
that locally for her, whether it's the County Board of
Supervisors or the State Senate. I know it's announced that
Nathan Magzig, who is the county supervisor who represents the
Clovis area, is running for the state Senate once Shannon
Grove term limits out. He'll be running for Grove's seat

(11:29):
in twenty twenty six. I think there are going to
be opportunities for Peers. And clearly she was heading shoulders
the leader on this whole issue. So in the press conference,
Diane Pierce spoke, she read a message from State Senator
Shannon Grove. David Tonguipa was there. He spoke, and he
talked about some proposals he was working on for maybe

(11:52):
open competition categories where the competition would be open to
persons of either sex, in order to sort of make
it clear that this is a woman's category, this is
a man's category. If you want people to come in
and mix regardless of Jenner in a separate category, that's fine.
He was sort of taking inspiration from. I guess professional

(12:14):
bowling does a kind of open competition in certain cases.

Speaker 2 (12:21):
I'm not sure.

Speaker 1 (12:22):
I mean, I can tell Tongu he's I can tell
that talk about is trying to work within the constraints
of what he can work with within the California state legislature,
which is to say, very liberal constraints.

Speaker 2 (12:36):
I guess I'm not sure how.

Speaker 1 (12:39):
Sensible that's going to be, though, given that for sports
like track and field, the only people who are going
to be in the open boys are just so much bigger, taller, stronger, faster,
and outmatch girls that the top boys out match the
top girls so significantly. I mean the winning the best

(13:02):
high jump on the girl's side was five foot seven.
The best high jump on the boy's side was six
foot nine. Like, what are we even talking about here?
There's no, it's not necessarily very sensible for it to
be a mixed category, i'd say. And throughout the Thursday

(13:25):
press conference, the leading object of scorn as is right
and just was our beloved Governor Gavin Newsom. Now Newsome,
you know, he made the critical mistake of doing this podcast,
which is now I think my wife noted that his

(13:47):
podcast listenership has absolutely plummeted from the first few episodes,
which is, by the way, how all these celebrity podcasts go.
Every celebrity podcast does this. They announced that some celebrity
has podcast, everyone makes a big start, maybe there's like
one news story that breaks as a result of it.
They get, you know, a bunch of people to listen

(14:09):
for the first two episodes, and then nobody ever listens
to it again. And that seems to be precisely what
happened with Newsom.

Speaker 2 (14:15):
Now.

Speaker 1 (14:16):
Newsom's problem was that when he started the podcast, he
was like talking only with like really conservative people like
Charlie Kirk and then Michael Savage and this person and
that person, and it really ticked off liberals that he
did that, and conservatives were like whoa, Okay, So, you know,
the very first episode of Newsom's podcast, he's talking with
Charlie Kirk and he says, yeah, it's deeply unfair when

(14:40):
biological boys, when boys, you know, playing girls sports. And
through the press conference, everyone's like, all right, well, Gavin Newsom,
where are you, buddy? You know, if you think it's
deeply unfair for boys to play girls sports.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
This is the state.

Speaker 1 (14:54):
Track and field championships. We're gonna say that the bet
that the high jump champion of California is a girl,
that the long jump second place finisher of California is
a excuse me, that the high jump girls champion is
a boy, that the long jump second place girls finisher

(15:16):
is a boy, and that the triple jump champion by
almost two feet is a boy.

Speaker 2 (15:25):
Where are you?

Speaker 1 (15:26):
Where are you trying to lead the charge in the
state legislature to change this? But this is the problem
with Newsom. He says it's unfair, but he doesn't have
the political stones, He doesn't have the political courage to
actually do.

Speaker 2 (15:44):
Anything about it.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
He's not going to introduce legislation to keep boys out
of girls sports, and he doesn't have clean hands on
the question. It was Newsome in twenty twenty who changed
California law signed into law massive changes for California prisons

(16:09):
mandating that they house inmates on the basis of gender identity,
not biological sex. Which, as much as we're talking about
girl sports, and yes, I do think boys playing girl
sports is unfair and unjust, housing men in women's prisons
is worse. It's a much more serious violation of privacy,

(16:29):
a much more serious risk because now you're saying that
women have to be locked up.

Speaker 2 (16:38):
With convicted criminals, convicted criminal men.

Speaker 1 (16:44):
As we see in Madera County where Sally Moreno, the
DA up there is prosecuting a man who got housed
in the Chowchilla Women's prison who proceeded is accused of
raping three of his cellmates, one of whom he got pregnant.
When we return, we'll have more from my weekend at

(17:07):
the races, My day at the races, My day at
the Culture War races.

Speaker 2 (17:11):
That's next on the John Girardi Show.

Speaker 1 (17:15):
John Girardi here, we're talking about this past weekend at
the California State High School track and field meet held
up Buchanan High School, in which a biological well, just
a boy. I'm not sure there's any other kind of
boy than a biological boy. Biology is what makes you
a boy.

Speaker 2 (17:33):
A boy.

Speaker 1 (17:33):
Ab Hernandez, who's a junior from la from Harupa Valley
High School in southern California, a boy, won the California
state championship in the triple jump, tied for first in
the high jump, and got second placed in the long jump,
all in the girls' division in spite of the fact
that ab Hernandez is a boy. So I was there

(17:57):
Friday and Saturday. Friday was the pliminaries and Saturday was
the championship competitions for the state track and field meets,
and it was actually it was my first time going
to a big track and field meet like that. It
was actually really interesting and pretty fun. The not so
much the field events, the high jump, long jump, triple jump.
Those were pretty boring, honestly, but the track events were

(18:20):
super exciting, including the one hundred meter dash, where a
boy set the new California state record in the one
hundred meter dash. This kid ran a ten point h
one second one hundred meter dash, which was absolutely thrilling
to watch. So let me talk about Hernandez himself, who,

(18:45):
by the way, in all of this. Let's just remember,
I understand a lot of you listening don't like boys
playing girls sports. I have no ill will to the kid, who,
let's remember, is a kid. This is an eleventh grader.
This is not an adult. So let's take that with
a grain of salt. I'm not here to bash any kid.

(19:06):
So Hernandez is a very effeminate acting boy. He's not
the biggest boy, he's obviously pretty slight, but he's recognizably
a boy. He's a boy who has his hair done up.

(19:29):
His face is just caked with makeup, like almost comically
so in some of the photographs from the event, my
wife thought, oh my gosh, it's like it's.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Almost to the point of being clown makeup.

Speaker 1 (19:45):
His hair is oddly bleached, kind of a copper color,
coppery blonde. But he's recognizably a boy, and the physical
advantages of being a boy in these competitions or him
are just obvious.

Speaker 2 (20:05):
He's flat chested, he's got narrow hips.

Speaker 1 (20:08):
He's got broad shoulders, he's got more defined musculature than
most of the girls. And it's sort of that, I mean,
that's why clearly he's doing so well. It's not because
He's got this immaculate form in any of his events,

(20:28):
and I'll talk about that more later. He can kind
of get away with sort of mediocre form because he's
got muscles on muscles on muscles that the girls just
don't have.

Speaker 2 (20:41):
And it's not the girl's fault. They're just girls. Girls
musculature is different from boys.

Speaker 1 (20:48):
And it allows him, as a fairly mediocre male athlete,
to just completely dominate.

Speaker 2 (20:55):
Now, when we return.

Speaker 1 (20:57):
I'll talk about specific events and specifics of what I saw,
including some of the craziness that happened outside the gates
at the track meet. All that next on the John
Girardi Show at the California State Track and Field Meet Friday,
and this past Friday and Saturday, the high school track
and Field meet, in which a boy, ab Hernandez was

(21:18):
competing in the girls division for some of the events.
The action happening outside was about as wild as the
action happening inside the stadium.

Speaker 2 (21:31):
So let me kind of try and paint the scene
for you.

Speaker 1 (21:34):
So Friday, Friday, the gates open at two at Veterans
Memorial Stadium at Buchanan. It is hot. It is like
one hundred plus degrees. Really stinking hot. I go into
the stadium and I'm at the kind of the east

(21:55):
end of the stadium, which is near you know, you
can look right outside the fence and you see the
corner of Minnie Wah Wah and Knees Avenues in Clovis,
and there's sort of that corner there, and on that
corner were protesters, protesters against boys in girls' sports. And

(22:20):
at different times they were there holding signs, having cars
passed by honk at them. A lot of them were
were women wearing pink clothing of various kinds, holding signs
that say save girls sports, no boys and girls sports,
et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. Different conservative social media
types were out there on the corner. Now, on Friday,

(22:46):
a pro transgender protester showed up and was out there
on the corner. It was kind of after a lot
of the anti transgenderism protesters had left this this pro
transgenderis tester came out and now this pro transgenderism protester,
according to news reports after the event, goes by the

(23:11):
name Ethan Kroll. Now I couldn't one hundred percent tell,
mostly because Kroll was really covered up. I couldn't tell
if Kroll was actually a woman. I think Kroll might
have been a woman, I'm not exactly sure. Just again,
this person was very covered up. Kroll was outside again

(23:36):
at the corner of Knees in Minneuowa, wearing all black,
black blue jeans, a black hoodie sweatshirt with the hood
pulled up. And again, let's remember it's like one hundred
and three degrees, black sunglasses, a black face mask, even
wearing black gloves, and holding a transgender pride flag sort of,

(24:00):
which is I think it's like blue pink. It's five
horizontal stripes on a flag, blue, pink, white, pink.

Speaker 2 (24:08):
Blue, because you can switch between blue and pink, which
is hilarious.

Speaker 1 (24:13):
How the whole transgender ideology is premised on the idea
that sex or gender is really just based in nothing
other than very hackneyed stereotypes about the male and female sexes.
Being a woman is just a matter of liking girly things.
Being a man is just a matter of liking guy things.

(24:35):
So being a girl means you like pink. Being a
boy means you like blue. In spite of the fact
that like twenty or thirty years ago, feminists would have
screamed at you for.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Saying, just because a boy likes likes feminine things does
not make him less of a boy. Just because a
girl is a tomboy does not make her less of
a woman, like which true.

Speaker 1 (24:58):
Like, I don't think you ceased to be a boy
just because you're, you know, a three year old and
your playing with your sister's naked barbie doll or something.
And I don't think a girl is a boy because
you know she's falling down in mud and wants to
play baseball. Like no, you're You're still a boy, and
you're still a girl. And it's based on biology and physiogogy.

Speaker 2 (25:21):
Your body.

Speaker 1 (25:23):
Is a meaningful, constitutive element of who you are, of
your identity. Now, this person ethan crawl, This pro transgender
protester was out there dressed all in black, holding a
pro a transgender pride flag attached to an aluminum pole,

(25:49):
so holding and it was a big flag looked like
a like almost like a I don't know, like a
five foot long maybe five feet by three feet or so,
I guess flag attached to a large aluminum pole.

Speaker 2 (26:02):
Looked like it was about I don't know, four or
five feet long.

Speaker 1 (26:08):
I saw the after effects of it, but the video
of the event itself got posted onto x that Kroll
got into an argument with this local conservative kind of
activist guy named Josh Fulfer, who's very active on various

(26:28):
forms of social media. Fulfer's driving by, he told me,
with his wife, got into kind of a shouting match
with Kroll, and Kroll goes over to the side view window,
to the passenger window of the car and begins to

(26:49):
jam the butt end of this big aluminum pole that
the Pride flag is attached to through the window. Fulfer
then proceeds, I actually I forget if it was or
his wife. I think Fulford said it was him, proceeds
to pepper spray Kroll, the pro transgender protester, gets pepper
spray in the face. Police apparently saw the interaction. And

(27:15):
you know, I'm not the best lawyer in the world,
but if those are the facts, and I believe they are,
that's a pretty clear cutcase of Kroll engaging in assault
and of Fulfer engaging in reasonable self defense.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
So police arrested Kroll did not arrest.

Speaker 1 (27:39):
Fulfer, according to him, and according to news accounts, seems
like Krohle was the only person arrested.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
Kroll got charged with a couple of counts.

Speaker 1 (27:50):
And was booked into the Fresno County Jail, including with
a felony count of assault with a deadly weapon not
a firearm.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Now, that was nuts.

Speaker 1 (28:05):
Okay, So that was happening while the track and field
meet's going on. I'm kind of trying to watch the
track and field, but now I'm like trying to cover this,
and I'm talking with kids who were eyewitnesses to it.

Speaker 2 (28:16):
It was completely nuts.

Speaker 1 (28:21):
Also, the whole I should have led with this Friday
was surreal because overhead the whole time, we were pretty
much the entire afternoon from you know, the gates opened
at two. I mean I didn't leave until I think
after eight o'clock. The competition began at three. I don't

(28:43):
think I left until after eight o'clock. For most of
the afternoon, a plane was flying overhead above Veterans Memorial
Stadium at Buchanan with a banner behind it that said
no boys in girls sports, just constantly flying overhead.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
So everyone there was like, you know, engage with it. Now.
The crowd, it was a pretty full crowd.

Speaker 1 (29:06):
The Grand stands weren't completely filled just because the sun
was just mercilessly beating down on the grand stands that
are on sort of the north side of the state,
the north side sort of the north slash, it's kind
of the northeast side of the stadium, and then there's
sort of more of the southwest side of the state.
The southwest side of the stadium was more in the shade.
The northeast side of the stadium was just getting beaten

(29:30):
by the sun.

Speaker 2 (29:31):
So a lot of people were kind of on a hill.

Speaker 1 (29:34):
On the north west side of the stadium, and a
ton of people wound up filling the north side bleachers,
and everyone there, almost every single person there was either
family of a competitor or coaches of a competitor. There

(29:57):
were maybe there was a bigger representation of Buchanan High
school kids, and a lot of Buchanan kids were volunteering
for the event, but pretty much everyone there was there
because they were either coaching a competitor or family members
of a competitor, and so as a result, this was
a relatively a political crowd. No one was there for

(30:19):
the ab Hernandez controversy other than maybe a few scattered
people in the crowd, and I talked with a bunch
of people, different coaches and parents about you know, hey,
you know I'm here covering this for Power Talk.

Speaker 2 (30:35):
You know, do you have any thoughts on the ab
Hernandez thing?

Speaker 1 (30:37):
And no one really wanted to go on Very few
people anyway, wanted to go on the record.

Speaker 2 (30:43):
Because they were like, you know, my kids competing in this.

Speaker 1 (30:47):
If I give a quote or something, that's going to
distract from my kid, Like, you know, that's not what
I'm here for. But and I will note the crowd
seemed mostly supportive of Hernandez when Hernandez's name was first
announced for I think the first event Hernandez did on
Friday was the high jump. There was a smattering of applause,

(31:09):
of kind of pointed applause, and I would imagine pretty
much every liberal person there wanted to oh, yeah.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
Yeah, be very vocal about this.

Speaker 1 (31:21):
And you have to remember this was kind of a
cross section of California. This is not a cross section
of America. It was a cross section of California. This
was a California state wide event. So and it's track
and field, which probably draws a bit more left. I'd
say than other sports. I mean, this wasn't a high

(31:41):
school football crown necessarily, although there are a lot of
African American families who I don't think have the same
cultural sensitivity on these things as sort of.

Speaker 2 (31:51):
Lily white liberal families do.

Speaker 1 (31:55):
But talking with people off the record quietly beside, a
lot of people.

Speaker 2 (32:00):
Were willing to say, yeah, it's kind of ridiculous, this
is unfair. I mean, obviously it's unfair.

Speaker 1 (32:05):
I mean, and people were like a lot of people
I talked with were like very reasonable about it. I'm like,
you know, I don't blame the kid, but yeah, it's
obviously unfair for competition, Like that's a boy, Like he
can do stuff boys can do, and it just doesn't
make sense to have them competing against girls. Now, when

(32:30):
we return, I want to talk about the championship Day
on Saturday and Hernandez's results and sort of my thoughts
on basically how abe Hernandez is the twenty twenties Danny
Almonte for those of you who don't remember the fourteen
year old who was blown fastballs by twelve year olds
in the two thousand and one Little League World Series.

(32:51):
I'll explain when I returned this is the John Gerardi Show.
So what happened on Saturday at the California State High
School Track and Field Championships where a boy, ab Hernandez
competed against girls in the long jump, high jump, and
triple jump. Well, he put on a dominant display against girls.

(33:17):
He tied for first place in the high jump with
a height of five foot seven. He got second place
in the long jump, and he got first place in
the triple jump, going about almost two feet about one
foot nine something inches farther the closest girl competitor. And

(33:43):
this was where it was only watching him that I
really sort of began to understand and see. I mean,
obviously I knew the whole time it was unfair, but
I began to appreciate the unfairness in a more distinct way.
Explain why I want to talk specifically about the high jump.

(34:03):
Up to that point, high jump had been Hernandez's worst
event of the three events that he participates in. High
long jump, triple jump, triple jumps is best event in
the high jump. And I ran this by people who
know more about track and field than I did, but

(34:24):
even I noticed it. The girl competitors were in the
in the Basically, you take a bit of a running start.
You go in kind of almost like a semi circle
up until you get to the front of the cushion
in front of which is the bar that's hanging horizontally.

(34:46):
You pump your arms, you gather yourself, you bend your knees,
and then you spring. And your arms have a lot
to do with your jump. How you pump and gat
how pump your arms, gather your arms crouched to to
spring as high as you can. Your arms have a
lot to do with your success in the high jump.

(35:08):
And I could see with the girls they were using
your arms the way you would imagine they were hands
and fists.

Speaker 2 (35:18):
Pumping. I mean, it made sense.

Speaker 1 (35:24):
Hernandez was doing it kind of differently from all the
girls in the all the other girls in the competition,
all of the girls, not other girls. He's almost like
it's almost like prancing, and his with his hand palms

(35:44):
sort of flat, not like pumping, like doing it in
a more almost feminine. He's running in an almost more
comically effeminate way than the girls who are running to
gather up themselves for this jump. Because they're girls, they
don't care if they look feminine, and I almost wonder
if he's like doing this affected thing because he's trying so.

Speaker 2 (36:07):
Hard to give off the appearance of being a girl.

Speaker 1 (36:12):
And maybe I'm over analyzing this, but his form was
definitely different from the girls. And yet he gets a
jump of five feet seven inches to equal the best
girl in spite of the fact that his form is bad.
Why well, he can make up for the inadequacies of

(36:33):
his form because he's a boy, because he's got bigger,
stronger muscles. And this it led me to think of
Danny Almonte. When I was a kid. Two thousand and one,
there's this big scandal at the Little League World Series.
Little League World Series is for twelve years old and under,
and a team from the Bronx was dominating with this

(36:54):
picture that everyone's like, this kid's a phenom, this kid's
gonna be.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
An amazing picture. Maybe he'll go pro. Danny al Monty,
this Dominican kid from New York. Wow, he's just he's
dominating the Little League World Series.

Speaker 1 (37:07):
And then a couple of years later it turns out, oh,
Danny al Monty is actually fourteen years old. His Dominican
birth certificate was fudge was dicey. He was actually fourteen,
and what did that do well? It immediately showed that
Daniel Monty was not a very impressive athlete. Yeah, plenty
of fourteen year olds can blow fastballs. By twelve year olds,

(37:28):
it's not an indication of being anything special. And that's
what Aby Hernandez is. He is the Danny al Monty
of the twenty twenties. He's not actually a very good
high jumper. If you compare him against boys, there were
at least in the southern section of CIF, which is
most of the Los Angeles area excluding the city of
Los Angeles, in D three high schools, there were at

(37:52):
least twenty boys who jumped higher than Hernandez has ever jumped.
He's just kind of a mediocre athlete. And yet at
the metal ceremony, here he is with the two other
girls he tied for first place with standing in front
of them. The symbolism was hard to miss. That'll do it,

(38:13):
John Dirolady show, see you next time on Power Talk.