Episode #124: Feeney Talks with Steve Boyle

Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
All right, all right.

(00:01):
Feeney Talks with friends.
Episode 124.
I'm really excited about our guest today.What's up? Steve?
How are you? Great to be here.This is amazing.
Feeney talks with friends.
I use this podcast.
Feeney talks with friends,and I talk to wonderful
people in the communitythat are doing great things.
And, Steve, I mean, how fitting is it?
It's it's episode 124, and you represent.

(00:23):
Two for one. You got it.
Two for one.
Life's too short for one, sport.
That's an amazing slogan.
I mean, where can we start?We're so excited.
How did how did that model get started?
Where's two for one?
Well,you know, I've told this story many times,
and actually
probably this is one of the closest placesto where it happened, where I,

(00:44):
got to tell it.
So you might know, I, you know,I was working as a counselor and a coach
right here at Hall High School,not too far from where we're doing this.
And my wife was athletic directorat the Watkinson School,
and we had a young family,and I was coaching different sports
over at Hall, and Sarah'scoaching soccer, and my,
my oldest daughter, who's now,you know, going to be 29,

(01:04):
was trying out for the local travel soccerteam as an eight year old.
And, you know, we just didn'twant our kid to be bad at sports, right?
You know, we just weren't because we knewhow life giving it was to us.
So we'd hope she'd make the team.
Well, we get the call after the tryout.
Guy says to us, your daughter'sour number one prospect.

(01:24):
And Iwas like, dude, she's eight years old.
She's nobody's prospect.
But, you know, still,
you know, it was it still madeyou feel good that your kid was good.
Right?
And so she starts to go onabout the Brazilian style of play
that she's going to fit in into a systemand the whole thing.
And after about 20 minutesor so of like him
talking about the commitment and all this,I said, well, look,

(01:46):
Elenashowed some interest in playing lacrosse
because my wife
played lacrosse in college, you know,and I've always thought of soccer
as a fall sport.
But I knew knowing that there wassome commitment in the spring and some.
Right.
As soon as I say that he goes radio silent
kind ofgets angry and says, hold on a second.
And then literally,as if he's talking to the guy

(02:08):
in the back of the car dealership,he comes back on like 20 awkward seconds
later and says, we're no longerinterested in your daughter,
simply because as an eight year old,she was showing
some interest in another sport.
So I said some thingsthat I probably shouldn't
say on a friend's podcast to this guy.
And I said to my wife that night,you know,

(02:28):
we're in a positionto do something about this.
Like, you know,we could shout from the mountaintops,
or we could
actually think about bringing backthe three season athlete, the whole thing.
And we came up with the taglinethat night,
life's too short for just one sport.
And we actually started as a, summer campmom and pop camp just for girls.
We had three daughters.

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We had a bunch of friendswho had daughters.
We knew we could get themto at least send their kids, get 64 girls
the first the first summerover at Watkinson and moms and dads
showed up holding the hands of their sonsand said, we do this for boys.
And to be honest, you know,I was coaching girls, we had daughters.
I didn't know if we could get boys.

(03:08):
And I said, if you send them,we'll run the camp for boys.
So we did single genderour first two years, believe it or not,
three years actually, because then we didalternating weeks of girls and boys.
But we outgrew Watkinson, the facility,just when it rained,
there was no turfand we were eating up the grass.
So luckilyKingswood Oxford took us over there and

(03:31):
in 2014, it was
maybe five years after we startedthe Aspen Institute in Washington
DC contacted us and said,would you mind if we recognized you
as one of eight model programsin the United States as like this.
They had a seminal reportcalled Project Play.
It was reimagining youth sports.
So the elite organizationswere organizations

(03:54):
like Special Olympics, Pop Warner,the Tony Hawk Foundation,
USA, hockey,and then Little two for one sports.
And it was crazy like, so I go and I,
you know, Billie Jean Kingis there and Michelle Obama is there.
And then there's me like,and I was like, Mr.
Smith goes to Washington.
But it reallythere was no one doing it anymore.

(04:14):
Right?
There was like,it didn't seem like a novel idea to us,
but we were just like kids playingmore than one sport, not specializing.
That's that's not brilliant.
It's just what we believe in.
Yeah, but no one was programing for it,so it elevated us to the national stage.
And you know,I know I'm going on about this, but like,
sometimes I look back and I'm like, wow,how did this happen man?

(04:35):
Like given given the scopeof what we're doing right now.
I know it's amazing.
And to grow, they always say
like Coca-Cola was once soldfor a quarter here and now it's global.
And now you're all over.You're international now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you have again, two for one.
We're with Steve Boyle.
He's the executive directorand co-founder of two for one.

(04:55):
Got my swag, you know.
How do you like it? Two for one.
I'm honored to because
as you can see,there's some partners on the back.
Yeah, there he is.
The bottom fringe of Fini. Yes. All right.
Very excited to have you.
This a long time coming.
I know we we've talked about getting youon the podcast and it worked out.
I wish I could say I set it upthat it's 124, but I'm just.

(05:18):
Glad we didn't wait for two, four, one,two right to do it.
I mean. It's a while away. Yeah.
So it says herethat you can't started in 2008.
So you're going on 16.
What's that. Right.
16 years.
This will be our 17th. 17 years. Yeah.
It goes from ages 5 to 14.
You're at 21,000 kids.
16 states and five countries.

(05:41):
Yeah. Wow. Yeah.What are the five countries.
So we had, we've done, we have directprograming going on in Canada.
We've been in outside of Vancouverfor coming on six years.
And then we do programing
in Zambia, Africa and Kenya.
And so, we've consulted

(06:03):
to Australia and India, Mexico.
And while it's not a country,we actually right now
in conversations we're bringing programto Puerto Rico as well.
And so we're excited about that.
We did a lot of during Covid,we became sort of a,
a program that different countriesreached out to because,

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we were one of the first to do real
programing with kids during the pandemic.
And part of the way we convincedsome of the schools was like,
you got to let us try itbecause you're going
to try to open school in the fallso we can do some trial and error stuff.
And we we really were ableto, based on best practice
and science, put togetherreally good quality programing.

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And, that was that was crazy, actually.
Just when I look back at thatnot too long ago, as far as states go,
you know, we've got really good footprintin Colorado.
We've been in Boulderand the Denver area for a long time.
Charlotte, North Carolina,
we're in Englewood, new Jersey,as well as Englewood, Colorado.
We've,

(07:07):
during pandemic, we did programingin Indianapolis, Indiana.
You know, our model is onewhere we always quip that kids are kids
no matter where you go, right?
You know, regardless of their zip code.
And, we're trying to be more strategicabout where we go.
It used to bewe would chase the tail a little bit.
Someone said, hey, come to Colorado,we'd be like, okay, we'll come.
That sounds cool.
But now you know, our with our boardand with our growth, we're able

(07:32):
to be more intentional about those placeswhere we're trying to, to do programing.
So yeah. No, that's amazing.
I mean, and Africa.
So how does that work?
How do you do you reach out to someoneor does someone reach out to you?
I, I'm so interested on how that workedout. Well.
I'm so grateful that, you know,

(07:52):
you get these sort of random spamemails, right?
And so and you can usually tellby the way they're formatted or how,
like dear sir or something like that,but I got one and that was
it said physical literacy in Kenya.
And I looked up the websiteof the gentleman who had sent the email,
and they were legit, you know, but knew,what they call NGO or not non-governmental

(08:15):
organizations, the equivalentof being a nonprofit in, in Africa.
And so I set up a zoom call with him.
And this when we started, we were, an LLC.
We were a small business, if you will.
It's kind of a side thing that my wife andI had been doing all these years.
We lookedand smelled a lot like a nonprofit
because we were giving scholarshipsand we were clearly mission driven,

(08:36):
but it was just the way we had set it up,and we'd always wanted to go nonprofit.
And so in talking with this organizationcalled wellness for greatness,
we actually before Covid, we werewe were looking to figure out a way
if we could starta nonprofit arm for them,
and then we would go over and do trainingand let them know sort of a two, four

(08:56):
one way.
And then Covid came
and conversations died on the vinea little bit, and then we rebooted.
And then Omicron cameand Omicron started in South Africa.
And it worked its way up the continent.
And so then during that time in 2021,we actually did decide to go nonprofit.
So we applied for our 501 C3 inDecember of 21.

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We were approved in August of 22.
And that is absolutely morethan quadrupled our reach.
It's just because we now
still live in the, in the worldwhere we are doing,
you know, anti specialization in placeslike West Hartford and Denver
and you know, our traditionalwhat we call parent pay camps, we now are

(09:42):
probably have I don't know multiply timesten done grant funded programing.
So we're programing year round in placeslike Hartford
and New Britainin in, in in underserved communities.
And two of those underserved communitiesare Nairobi, Kenya and Kitt Way, Zambia.
So, last year Carrie and I went over,we did training.

(10:02):
We have since hired someone to sort oflead our projects in Africa.
And we're we're down the pathwith some organizations
that we could really scale there
because the need is just,as you can imagine, just so great.
I know it says that you went in January2024 and, you know,
they predominantly played soccer,but you introduced ultimate Frisbee
and some other fun sports.

(10:23):
So that's so cool. Yeah, two for one.
Any sport, you know.
No. It's great.
I'm going to shout out some sponsors,please. Yeah.
So we're here at Maximum Beverage.
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(10:46):
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We're here and West Hartford lock.
So West Hartford lock Eric and Yuriwith West for lock.
What are three keys that make you greatat being the executive director?

(11:10):
Two for one. Wow.
I thought you brought mewith all the hard questions, but,
three keys. So,
I think what's interesting abouteven my team.
But, you know, I went to that team is that
we have a just a wealth of experience.
And, you know, I,we do programing in communities.

(11:31):
We do them in schools. Right.
And so I've spent my whole lifearound kids
and working with institutionsand understanding
what are those things that are challengesfor schools and communities,
and what are those thingsthat can be a value add.
And so whenever we go into places,we're always trying to find what's the win
win situation for the kids,but also understanding it's educators

(11:55):
who are delivering it,or there's community
based organizationsand there's challenges with that.
So I think I think our experience aroundunderstanding
governmental agencies, understandingpublic schools, private schools, the
how schools run and then whatthe needs are for families as well.
I think that's important.
I'm a I come from a family of eight.

(12:15):
I'm the I'm the oldest middle child,as I like to say, because I got,
you know, there's three older brothers andthen there's three, two girls and a boy.
They're younger than me.
And my my brotherDavid are the middle are the middle ones,
and I'm the oldest of the middle ones,
but I'm kind of the classic middlechild, right?
Like,I, I worry about everybody, you know?
And so I want I want people to be happy,you know, and,

(12:36):
and in my familythat was they people just sort of knew it.
And in fact, my we lost my mom
two years ago this week and I got I,the family asked me to do the eulogy.
Right.
You know, so I think I think I comefrom a place of empathy and,
worrying aboutothers and I think they're there to value
in a nonprofit space, right, to reallywant to be concerned for what's happening

(12:59):
in other people's livesand making sure that they're happy.
Three keys.
You know, it's funny.
I, you know, there's a guidance counselorfor a long time, and I would often say,
like, you know, when you get an interview,like one of the things I would always
people would ask is like in an interview,what's your greatest strength?
And I'd say my competitiveness,
you know, and I was an athlete. Right.

(13:19):
And so and I had all these brothersand so we fun.
And what's your greatest weakness.
My competitiveness.
Right.
Because and in fact, in the work we do nowaround social emotional learning,
it's really how to manage your anger,how to channel it.
And competitivenessand anger can be two separate things.
So I really think that, you know, I,I'm driven.
But I think I'm driven in a missiondriven way,

(13:40):
you know, that it's not for, you know,owning a certain house or having things.
It's really for leaving a legacy.You know, I'm at that.
I'm approaching my 60s and, you know, I,I realize we're on to something here
in terms of being able to change lives andchange communities and change cultures.
And so,
I think my competitiveness
helps in that casebecause I'm driven to like,

(14:03):
make sure we get good stuff donebefore I'm gone
and that there's systems in place,you know? So I love it.
Yeah, yeah.
So I've heard empathy, knowledge and,
drive and motivation competitivenessI like it.
Yeah. So middle child.
Yeah I'm the oldest child.So what's that say?
I don't know,
I thought that's why I went into teachingbecause I was, I don't know, so funny.

(14:26):
The middle child.
Everyone has a drive in a way a story.
Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Oh, it was great.
Your three kids were amazing.That's so good.
Thank you. Two for one.Executive director and co-founder.
Who are you co-founding itwith? My wife, Carrie.
Yeah. So, Carrie grew up in Baltimore.
Her mom,
believe it or not, was Miss New Jerseyin the Miss America pageant.

(14:48):
And brilliant woman and her dad.
I wrote a blog oncecalled them the original two for one.
Or, he was a Golden Gloves boxer.
He was, college basketball,football and baseball player.
Cheese. He was a teaching tennis pro.
Just an amazing guy.
But he was a long a 44 year teachercoach at the Gilman School in Baltimore.

(15:08):
People might know Gilmanbecause there's a recent
alumni there named Luigi,but we won't go into that right now.
Okay.
And, he was SenatorPaul Sarbanes longest standing advisor.
So Paul Sarbanes, SarbanesOxley act people sometimes will know that,
so he, he was likeand he was a good friend to me.
And I'm not just saying thatbecause on this podcast,

(15:30):
like I really miss himwhen he's been going on with a decade.
So one of the things we're doingthis year is we're,
we're starting a pilot in Washington, DC,
but we're also going to lookto do a program
in Carrie's dad's name in Baltimore,because that's where he's from.
He washe was known as a civil rights activist.
Helped integratea lot of schools down there.

(15:51):
So we're going to try to bring our modelto Baltimore and raise funds
in his honor, to, to get programsstarting down there.
So, you know,so Carrie grew up in a sports world.
Heard her.
Are you New York Giants family? Yes.
So her,her godfather's guy named George Young.
He'll go hired Bill Parcell.
He was the general manager of the Giants.Yeah.
Yeah, yeah. So, yeah.

(16:11):
So he was the general manager.
He wound up, leaving the Giants and headed
NFL Europe beforethey were doing all that stuff started.
Get it started. Yeah.
But hehe passed away about 15 years ago or so.
But she's just,you know, my our first date was 50 yard
line of the New York Giantsversus Minnesota Vikings.
So yeah.
Yeah. Beat it. Yeah.
It's awesome. Yeah. Go Giants.

(16:32):
Great. Go Giants man. Yeah.
So your father in law was an amazinghuman being. Jeez.
Yeah.
Boxing. Basketball baseball. Football.
Oh my god.
And you know,
and so Carrie always jokedthat she couldn't date anybody from,
you know, because she was in thereall girl school
across the street from where he was.
And no one wanted to dateCoach Slaughter's daughter because he was
he was old school tough guy,you know what I mean?

(16:52):
But he used to call me a snackand I go watch a snack.
He goes, you're a sensitive new age guy.
Oh, okay, I like that.
No names for that.
No, but. Smell right here. Yeah.
That's so funny.
Yeah. He washe was a good man, a good man.
And we're excitedto actually do something in his honor.
It's great to pay tribute to himand honor his his legacy.

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That's amazing. Yeah.
And I think he motivated usto do this, right?
I mean, hehe was stoked when we started it, right?
Because he was sort of like,oh, that's great.
But he was frustrated as well like that.
It was a need because for him especially,you know, the era he grew up in,
it's just the idea
of not playing more than onesport was crazy.

(17:36):
He had a great line.
We walked into FSA one day
and, you know, because our kids were doingthe travel soccer thing
and he walks in and he looks around,kind of does a slow roll.
He goes, you know what this place is?
He goes,this is a shrine to Overinvolved parents.
And I thought very fitting.
But again, you think about it,you know a guy from that generation that,

(17:57):
that to have an indoor sportsarena to play an outdoor game
and it's packedwith parents on the sidelines
screaming at coaches and cheeringtheir kids on or yelling directions.
It was we used to call that a park, right.
And, you know,regardless of the time of year.
So anyway,

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he had a lot of influence on us as well.
Nice. Yeah.
Well, I'm glad you get to honor him.
That's great. Yeah.
And also congratulations.
I mean, it's a year late, but you receivedthe catalyst endowment fund.
Actually, no, that was this year.That was this year. Yeah.
We applied in the, in the fall,and we won November.
Yeah, yeah, yeah,we received a two year grant. So,

(18:40):
Yeah.
So the Catalyst Endowment Fund
is part of the Hartford Foundationfor Public Giving.
You know, that's the new thing for ustwo, right?
Is that we we had been lifelong educator.
So this idea of writing grants and,you know, finding
what are the sources of funds and whowho would be interested in being a donor.
So we have to constantly be on the lookoutand also work really hard to put forth

(19:01):
good grantsbecause the they're competitive
and the qualifications for them.
You got to make sure
like you're doing things that are,you know, budget and the whole piece.
And so this year's grant like fitthe like the theme each year
that catalyst Group has a different themeand it just fit us
because it was really aroundaccess to youth sports,

(19:23):
and developingleadership through youth sports.
And that we do that in Hartford right now.
And with a lot of Covid money,Esser money,
you know, people would call itstimulus money, what have you.
Those funds have all dried upin the last 12 months.
And so we're becoming moreand more dependent on
on grants and corporate ownershipand individual ownership.

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And so, we applied for 69,000.
They awarded a 64,000.
So it's going to allow usto start a brand new, full year program
at the Sand School in, in Hartford.
It's going to allow us to continue at WestMiddle School.
These are both community schools.
Like when I say community schools,they're like in Hartford,
you've got magnet schools,you got charter schools,

(20:06):
you got neighborhood schoolsor community schools.
Community schools are where kids walk,you know, like there's very few busses.
And so, and they tend to be poorerschools, and with less resources.
So we're so psyched to have gotten that.
The other thingit's going to allow us to do
is increase our partnership with the center for Healing and Justice through Sports.
They're a national organization

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that, does coachtraining through a trauma informed lens.
And so because we do so much work aroundsocial emotional learning and sports,
but we're programmers and their trainers,they've become a great partner of ours.
So they're going to come into Hartfordand do two live trainings.
For anybody in the Hartford communitythat wants to come,
we're already partnering with Active CityHartford, with Crec coaches, with,

(20:50):
Hartford Public Schoolcoaches, with UConn.
We're hoping to get 150 people to come dothis training free for everybody.
Well done with this funding.
But the other thing it's really cool
is that they're going to help us digitizeour our training platform.
So like in the next week,I've got I'm training people in Norwich,
Hartford, East Hartford, WashingtonDC, Africa all delivering our program.

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We can't do live trainingas much as we'd like to do.
So they're going to help us digitizeour online modules in a way
that we're not going to lose efficacyin terms of it, there's
nothing better than in-person training,but as we scale, there's a reality to it.
Center for Healing and JusticeThrough Sports is partnered.
In fact, they're up there at Nikeheadquarters in Oregon right now.

(21:36):
They're they're backed by Nike.
They justgot they're just so good at what they do.
I mean, you and I are lifelongteachers, right?
We all know there's like,
good professional developmentand there's like, why am I sitting here?
Professional development.
They do the best professional developmentI've ever been a part of.
I'm not just saying thatlike we did one, in Hartford last year.
They came up and it was 5:38 p.m.

(21:58):
on a school night.
Teachers and coaches in there,some of them were told they had to go
and the first people were in the back.
Like all right,when's this going to be over?
It was 830 for a PD that ended at 8:00.
No one had checked their watchand people were literally angry
when they saw what time it wasbecause we had to end.
We had to get out of the schoolwe were in.
It was just that good.It was that engaging.

(22:21):
So yeah. We're there's a. Lot.
Yeah, we're super stoked.
And the fact
that we got some funding, through, throughthis grant is huge for us.
Yeah.That's amazing. Yeah. Congratulations.
Thanks, man.
Yeah. What's top stand for?
Top thinking on purpose. All right. So,
crazy story on her on how this onestarted.
Right. So,

(22:41):
I'm in my mid mid 30s teachingand coaching over and over at whole.
I got a young family and,I actually was involved in the rescue of,
in a faculty meeting.
A colleague had a heart attack.
She flatlined, and,I and another colleague did CPR
in such a way that we were able tothe defibrillator was able

(23:04):
to do what it's supposed to do.
And so they say that 3% of all people who,
flatlined make it to the hospital alive.
And of those 3%,only 3% don't have any brain damage.
Well, this colleague called me three dayslater to say I'm okay.
And so I didn't know it at the time,

(23:25):
but I then developed
I had a I had a PTSD response to that,not realizing.
And I went up in the hospital myselffour times.
The first three times they checked mefor heart issues and the whole thing
because I was having chest pains and raceand thing. And the fourth time they said,
you got to go to the psychiatrist.
So little didI know I was having a panic attacks.

(23:48):
I'd always suffered from anxiety,but I didn't know that.
And I manage it through emotion and humorand just ways that young guys do.
Right.
And so,it was really humbling for the counselor
to have to go see a counselor. And,
but it literally
is changing thousands of livesaround the world because that happened.

(24:08):
So we I had to learn what's calledcognitive behavioral therapy.
And it's basically allowing yourself toto not let the anxiety creep in to like,
use your brain to tell yourselfthis is what's happening and use
strategies to distract yourself from it,and to prevent it from consuming you.
So tap came from that.

(24:30):
So we created this sort of a marriageof different social
emotional learning platformsthat are out there.
A lot of people are familiarwith a ruler. Second step,
and we created this one
to have a sports sort of focus on it,but it used.
So the strategy that I learnedthat helped me the most was

(24:51):
when I felt the anxiety coming onwould be able to quickly do some breathing
that would take me to my favorite place
in the world, which was up in Maine,on the beach with my family.
And so I had started to talk to peopleabout wanting to do this with the kids
I was working withand bringing it into the school.
And so a lot of people like, well,that mindfulness or that, you know,
mindfulness, brainwashing and I'm like,no, it's not.

(25:14):
So someone said, you know,
what they call it in, the Army,they call it strategic thinking.
And I thought to myself, all right,that's kind of cool, because then anybody
that's likeanti, you know, mindfulness or whatever.
So I came up with the idea of topthinking on purpose.
Right.
There's an intention ality of, you know,John Kabat-Zinn definition of mindfulness

(25:36):
literally saysthinking on purpose in there.
So we got top self.
And so what we do is we help kidsidentify the emotions they're feeling.
No judgment.
Right. You're angry,you're anxious, you're whatever.
And I always just lead with kids.And I get anxious a lot.
I get nervousand that helps calm them down.
And then we just give them strategiesfor how to go from how they're feeling

(25:58):
to how they want to feel.
And there's an emoji based imagethat we have it up on our website.
We have that posterhanging in all the schools that we do.
So we start all of our programsjust normalizing social
emotional learning, right?
That it's okay to get angry.
It's okay to be nervous.
It's okay to feel sad.
It's just not okay to live in that spaceif you can do something about it.

(26:20):
And the reason it works so well is because
sports are the most authentic classroomfor teaching school, right?
Kids get they get nervous,they get upset, right?
And they get upset about different things.He fouled me.
He pushed me.
She's notshe's not passing the ball to me.
My mom and dad didn't come to the gameand they told me they were going to,

(26:40):
you know, like there'sall different emotions that happen.
Whereas a school counselorI used to go in and have to do a lecture
on social emotional learning.
So I'd be like, all right,make pretend you're angry right now.
You know, like that's not helpful.
And then you leave and they don't forgetwhat you taught them in our program.
They really are angry.They really are upset.
They really.
And then they can use the strategiesthat we used to start the lesson.

(27:03):
And it's it's every day, right.
We start every day with it.
But it's 2 or 3 minutes. We normalize it.
We help them understand, like,you know, superheroes have anxiety.
NBA stars, why do they take a deep breathbefore they take a foul shot?
Why does the kicker tryto calm themselves down?
Why do people get hyped up before a gameso that they can understand the value

(27:24):
of controllingand regulating their emotions?
So you don't want to get a technical foulor a yellow card?
Yeah.
Or yell at your coachbecause he pulled you out of the game.
Yeah. Yeah.
Now it's so interesting in the breathingis a very helpful mindfulness breathing.
Yeah.
You know, as a teacher like you deal withyou probably there's so many teachers
now, especially coming out of Covidthat say so much of their work

(27:47):
is really on self-regulation and classroommanagement, behavior management.
And the PE teachers
that we've been doing this programwith, it's a before after school program.
They ask us, can I use thisduring my PE or health class?
We're like, absolutely.
And every single one of them does itbecause while they have other things
they've been trained
in, they said, nothing works like thisbecause it's just quick, you know,

(28:10):
That's awesome.
Thinking on purpose top.
Yeah.
So we just presentedat the Castle conference in, in Chicago.
So Doctor Julie Goldstein, who used toshe was principal of, Breakthrough
Magnet South, which was number onemagnet school in America in 2015.
She then was, principal at HartfordMagnet, Trinity College Academy,

(28:30):
where we poached her.
She's now our, chief program officer.
We actually just changed her titleto director of strategic Initiatives.
She she got herdoctorate studying top shelf.
And, so it's now researchback, evidence based.
And we were the only youth sport
development program at Castle in Chicagothis year, presenting our research.

(28:51):
And, you know, we've gotevery all the schools we're going to now,
that piece is obviously a big sellfor them because,
you know, social emotional learningis something it's not a buzzword.
They realize how important it really is.
So we do second step in schools.
Yeah yeah yeah.
It's similar. It's just you know, it's
in my opinion because I know all of them.

(29:12):
It's just a little more authentic,especially for our setting.
And you'rethe goal is to get to home base.
So there's a sportssort of analogy with that.
So we have emojis on the outside.
And then it's likehow do you get to home base.
And people know home base and hideand seek.
It's a safe place in baseball or kickball.
It's you're trying to score there, soyou're always trying to get to home base.

(29:32):
That's the strategy we use.
Well, what's PLP plps.
All right.So that's another kind of cool acronyms.
Yeah.
Cool thingwe added into our program that just,
I had always known
as a teacher and a coachthat if I could get my players
to teach a skill that I had taught them,they would own it more.

(29:56):
All right.
The other thing is, we were
trying to figure out a creative wayto get more kids involved in our programs.
So PLP stands for Physical Literacy Pal.
So when we got that AspenInstitute recognition,
we also helped write the United StatesWhite paper on physical literacy.
So we're contributors to that.
And people have seen myselfin our organization as sort of experts

(30:18):
in this concept of physical literacy.
Physical literacy
definition US is ability, confidenceand desire to be active for life.
A lot of sports, it's about it.
It's about skills.
It's about the, ability piece.
But I was always drawnto the affective pieces of confidence
and motivation or confidenceand desire to want to participate.

(30:38):
Like how do you make that happen?
So it's kind of a catchy name, right?
Pop physical literacy.
People think of them like reading buddiesat school, like walk out.
Maybe your oldest kids go downand read to the kindergartners.
In this case,we train the oldest kids in the school.
So in a K-5 school, wetrain the fifth graders to be these pops.
We interview them, they sign a contract,they have to commit to coming.

(31:02):
And what they do is they're there eithersometimes we call them like
the assistant coaches to the to the adultthat's working or like the captains.
And so their jobs are essentially to helporganize the games, welcome the kids
upon arrival, sometimes lead to the topself social emotional learning piece.
But what happens is oncebecause a lot of times

(31:23):
kids don't know how to organize themselvesanymore, right?
You get ten kids to say,okay, split sides and play a game,
and they'll look at you likeyou got to head right
because they don't know how to pick teamsor at least do it fairly.
So by giving them these responsibilities,what's happening is two things.
At recess,
they're going outside and they'reorganizing themselves for the first time.

(31:44):
And these stories are crazy.
Teachers are telling us that,you know, Eric, who's a trained PLP,
see, Steve starting to lose his cool,who hasn't been in the program?
Eric starts to teach Steve top self,this is how you come down.
You don't want to fight that kid.
You don't wantto get kicked out of whatever.
And so we're seeing now

(32:06):
like giving these kidsthis leadership role, it's a big deal.
It's impacting school culture.
And they're just better citizensin the school.
You know, nothing works betterthan giving a kid a leadership role.
So they love that.
And we don't always give it to those kidsthat are like the rock star kids
that are alreadygetting all the accolades.
Like, what we try to do iswe say to the people that administrators

(32:29):
are the fifth grade team who are thosekids are on the cusp, right?
That, you know, we often say at risk,but who are who's that promise, right.
Who's that kid that you know thatgiven the right
leadership, it's going to change.
It's going to change their life.
And it's really like it's it'sa core component of the program's amazing.
You got a lot of good stuffgoing on at two for one.

(32:50):
Where can someone reach out to youif they want to work or apply or.
Yeah.
So have their kid join.
I, myself and Carrie used to,you know, receive all that.
So, you know, our website is, 241 play.orgwhen we went from 241 sports
LLC mom and Pop camp to sort of globalnonprofit, we went to 241 care.

(33:12):
But people were getting confused.
So now we saywe put play back into sports.
So our easy to remember 241 play.org.
There's some
you know those questionnaires on therelike if you if you want more info.
Usually we let our camp directors on siteto the hiring of staff for,
for particular sites.
And then when we get grants

(33:33):
and we just open things up,we send it out to the general population.
Jessica from our team handles,
you know, our staffingfor all of our parent pay camps.
And then, Carrie,
usually we'll do our grant funded programsin terms of, you know, hiring for that.
Nice. And it's the mailing address.
1424 Park Street.
That's right.
8114.Yes, you can get that on our website.

(33:53):
So we have an office, officespace down there.
And, you know, it's our headquarters,right into Hartford.
Address. But, you know, truth be told,we're programmers.
We're we'rewe're not spending much time in an office.
We're out at schoolsand in the community all the time.
What do you have for suggestionson someone that's,
a nonprofitthat's looking to start writing grants

(34:13):
like the Hartford Foundationfor Public Giving?
Do you have a suggestion for I.
Do I you know what drives me crazysometimes is how like, guarded
people can be aboutnot wanting to share our stuff.
We have found that, you know,you and I are a perfect example.
Like partneringis where the magic happens, right?
We don't do what you doand you don't do what we do.

(34:37):
And so it's it's finding those peoplethat are like
minded that you can collaborate with.
Now, would we struggle to find a grantwe could write for together?
Probably. Right.
But that doesn't meanI can't share with you.
Like, hey, here's a good grant.I heard about that. I think you did.
But center for Healing and Justicethree sports, that's a perfect example.
Like there are people that want to competewith them as opposed to join with them.

(35:01):
It's crazy to me, like we're serving kids.
And so a lot of, grantors
love itwhen nonprofits collaborate, right?
Because they knowthey're more powerful together
and the dollarscan, can get more spread out.
So that would be my firstpiece of advice is to find likeminded,
partners that you can help fill each

(35:21):
fill gaps like we're partnerswith Active City, Hartford.
That's been a huge partnership for us.
Some people could see usas essentially competitors, but
we don't look at things that way.
Like we don'twe're not fighting over kids, right?
If you're doing good workand we're doing good work,
there's plenty of kids to go around.
And so,that's the mentality we've always had.

(35:42):
So I'd lead with that.
Thank you.
Yeah.
And speaking of partnershipand collaboration, what happened on May
11th, 2024?
The blue Jean mile.
So, that was our secondannual blue Jean mile.
And so, the story behind that is,
most people in West Hartfordat least know, Stephanie Blowzy, who,

(36:03):
was the owner of Fleet Feet, for, formany years, she and I shared in common.
Jason Hannigan, who was,
a guy who grew up in townthat everybody love, personal trainer,
but struggled his whole lifewith mental health issues.
We were both, friends with Mary Painter,his wife.

(36:24):
And, Jason used to play basketballwith me, and,
you know, I can't say, like,we were, like, the best of friends, but,
you know, he's one of those guys that onceyou met him, you were his guy, right?
No matter what.
So I took him in the Whole Foods, andI get your newsletters about two for one.
I love what you're doing.
I always, you know,I'm always pumped about it.

(36:44):
Well, sadly,he died by suicide shortly after Covid.
And, for those who knew him well, it wasdevastating, but not a shock, right?
Because they knew what his struggles were
and because we
were doing so much workaround, around mental health.
But really our,our we're in the prevention space, right?

(37:05):
We're not in the intervention space.
And what I mean bythat is the work we do with top
self is to get kidsto never get to that point, right.
That they have strategiesto either ask for help or to self-regulate
to a point where they would neverget to that, you know, situation.
And so, Stephanieand I, Stephanie said, you know what?

(37:26):
This guy Johnny Gregoire,lost his brother to suicide with?
Johnny Cork is a world class runner.
And what he did remember his brother,he came up with this idea,
the blue Jean mile.
And so what it is,is you run a mile in blue jeans.
And the reason he chose that is he saidthat was the closest equivalent
he could get to describing his brother'spain.

(37:46):
Right?
That his mental healthpain was like trying to run a mile in blue
jeans, just the,you know, just sweating in your,
you know, like scratching youin the hole, like, why would you do it?
But until you've experiencedsomething like that, you know,
I as a lifelong anxiety sufferer, it'shard to tell people what it feels like.
Right?
And so we heard about this and we thought,I wouldn't that we should do a local

(38:09):
blue jean mile and we we approached Mary,
Jason's wife, and, she jumped on board.
And, the first year we raised $10,000
and it was just it was a really goodfeeling community event.
It was a great placefor everybody to come together.
And then the next yearwe tried to grow it.
And that's when we reconnectedwith our friend at friend Tiffany

(38:31):
and, as soon as you all heard about it,you jumped right on board.
You guys came. You set up a photo booth.
You got a chance to, welcome, the groupthat was there.
Let them know about your mission.
And I remember being so impressedwith how well you articulate
what your mission is like.
You just.
It it flows, and it's clearly sonatural and again,

(38:53):
I think that's a perfect example of like,yeah, we can find ways to partner.
Right.
We and there's going to be opportunitiesI know that are going to happen
as a result of the workwe're doing in parallel with each other.
Know I'm here.
I wanted to thank you for that opportunity
because I still see peopleand they're like,
oh yeah, we remember you from the blueJean.
Yeah, yeah.

(39:14):
And we have a photo booth pic.
So we took one as a group.
Stephanie is going to put it up here,but yeah, we had the.
Oh that's. Right.
Yeah, we had a little photo booth.Both logos are on there.
Yeah yeah yeah.
We raised we raised $15,000 that dayand that and the money went directly to,
us being able to do a seasonand a half at West Middle School

(39:36):
and the AsylumHill, neighborhood of, of Hartford.
And a lot of the, the donors
from that, came over and saw the programand they were so impressed.
So we're actually in a move that event,this spring to Bushnell Park.
We had thought we had to have a track,but no one's going to run a 406 mile.
We don't think so. We're not worriedabout the unofficial market over.

(39:57):
Yeah, no, what we'll dois because most people walk it, probably.
I think about 85% of the peopledid it last year.
Walk the mile, which is great.
And then,then we have like two heat to have, like,
I want to run it for time heat.
And then we have like an elite heat and,but we think it'll be a good spot to do it
this year because we run, free programingat Bushnell Park in the evenings.

(40:19):
One of them is a run club,and so we're going to have all the kids
in the run club participate in it.
We'll, hopefully you guys can come backand set up a booth and, you.
Know, the date.
We don't have, we haven't secured it yetbecause we got to sort it out with,
the city of Hartford,plus the Bushnell, Park Foundation,
who have been wonderful partners of ours.
But, and we also want to look at thingslike, legislative sessions,

(40:40):
what's going on at UConn,you know, like things like that,
because we don't want to pick a datethat is, we think we think
the last Thursday in April, but,which is the 24th, I believe.
But we'll we'll make sure that doesn't.
Yeah, I appreciate it. Yeah.
Like you said, that partnershipand collaboration is powerful.
And it goes a long way when
people come together.
So yeah.

(41:00):
And thank you for being a good friendand inviting us.
Thank you for everything.
Yeah. You're doing great things. What?
How do you feel for exercise?
Helping mental health.
Oh, my God.
You know, it's interesting because,you know, I shared my own stuff, struggle
with anxiety and,you know, I, I grew up playing everything

(41:20):
and even into my young adult life,I was training for marathons,
and, I,
just before the timeI was telling you about
when, I did the CPRand I started to have my own panic.
I had gotten a little bit injured,and so I went from exercising
probably an hourand a half to two hours a day
to maybe 3 or 4 times a week

(41:42):
for 45 minutes or so,because I'd gotten some severe knee pain.
I put on a few pounds.
I my schedule was just not what it was.
And so I think what happenedwas I had spent my whole life
having exercise, manage my mental health.
And then when I stopped exercising,I didn't know that.
And so that's when all of a suddenI'd be having these episodes of

(42:06):
and sometimes it was sadnessto watch like,
and I didn't know where it was comingfrom.
And it's interesting because as someonewho went through the process.
So SSRI eyes are the drugsthat people get typically for depression
or for anxietywhen they give the same drug for a reason.
People know me as Lexapro or Zoloft,so those are sort of the more common

(42:27):
names were basicallywhat the way was described to me is that
your brain should is here ideally right.
When you're anxious, you're you're up herewhen you're depressed, you're down here.
What the drug does, is it takes the
it takes the anxious and brings it down,and it takes the depression, brings it up.

(42:48):
But you know what?
Exercise does the exact same thing.
Right.
And so and and for me to have learnedthat was super powerful with my recovery
because then I sort of knew like
it was just brain chemistrythat was messing with me.
So when I had to do the CBT stuff,I could tell myself that
that's just your anxiety talking,that's just your sadness talking.

(43:08):
Right.
So and then I,I that's why everybody says like
it's putting the shoes onis the hardest part.
Once you actually do the exercise,everyone's like,
I mean it was hard, but you're you're gladyou did it in most in most cases.
But I'll tell you, even as a counselor,
I when I first
started in West Hartford,it would be the random 10th or 11th grader

(43:30):
who was on medicationfor different things.
And then, 2008,which was the start of this.
Right?
It started to creep down into freshmanyear.
Then middle school,and then even elementary school kids
that are being put on medicationbecause they're not moving as much.
They're just not they're not regulatingtheir body with exercise.

(43:54):
And look, I don't I'mnot sitting here to be an be an expert.
A lot of it is just done on my ownpersonal experience, my own research.
But exercise is the best medicine forfor mental health.
And when I say exercise, let people hear.
I push ups.
And, you know,you know, like calisthenics.
I mean, play like, I mean,
because the other thing about itis, is that it's belongingness.

(44:15):
Like when you play,you're with other people,
you're making social connections, right?
You're learninghow to belong to something.
You're learning empathy,you're learning social skills
and if you're if you're on your device,you're not.
How to be a good winner,how to be a loser 100.
Percent.Yeah. Social media and phones, man.
That's athat's a whole podcast for another day.

(44:36):
Yeah. No exercise.I cosign that personally.
I find that, you know, this SaturdayI was feeling lethargic.
Down and out.
Let's go for a run. Yeah.
Get the dog.
Go for a run
or you know, let's just do ten squats,ten pushups, get that blood flowing.
And it's hard because unless you sort ofhave experienced the positive outcome,
if you're feeling lethargic,sometimes you just want to go deeper

(44:59):
into the lethargy. Right.
And so you have to be able to help kidsexperience the power of of that
and be really intentionalabout helping them to recognize
how good playing and movingmakes them feel.
Joy. Dancing is great. Dancing.Yeah, yeah.
Listen, you're talking to a dancer, I.
Believe me, I know you just don't.
You don't think I brought that upintentionally?
Thank you for that.

(45:20):
We shared last podcastwith whole videos out there on 123.
If you want to see the awardwinning dancing performance.
Very.
Easily, Robert Rivera my,
my my co partner from, Juniper Homes.
I meant to say juniper, but, Kerry,Kerry and I love to dance.
And so, we, in fact,I purchased some ballroom dance stuff

(45:43):
from Playhouse on Parks auction that havestill been sitting there because,
you know, when you get these auctionitems, you're like, oh, got it.
This is be so fun.
This will be cool.
So you've now prompted methat I got to follow up with them?
Yeah, I.
That motivated meto sign up with my wife too,
because it was like somethingto do with your loved one.
Yeah. You're in touch.
You're learning something new.
You're vulnerable.

(46:04):
I loved it, I. Mean,it's like built in date night.
Yeah, yeah, built in date night.
And it's, like, scheduled.You have to go. Yeah.
You're you're going to do it. You make it.
Make time for it.
But yeah, Nicole and I have done itonce before it Arthur Murray
and we're going back.
Yeah, we've we've offered danceat a number of our programs
because, you know, at the end of the day,that's a sport to meet you like.
Yeah, that's great.
So my two sisters run the largest Irishdance school in all of Washington, D.C.

(46:28):
area, Boyle School of Irish Dance.
You can look it up and, you know, it'sa little bit cultural, right?
Growing up, Irish immigrants,
the girlsdanced and the boys played sports.
But I loved the dance.
In fact, I was decent at Irish dancinguntil my brothers just made fun of me
for being in a kilt. Like, literally.
That's how it was when we grew up.

(46:48):
And I, you know, I look back at it nowand I really wish I still had
that as something that I did.
But my sisters are great athletes,like my Irish dance.
It's tough. Right? Calves are oh my god.
Yeah. Just yeah.
And I like how their upper body.
Oh yeah yeah.
It stays tight. Yeah.
You know why the arms stay down there.
Because I guess they danced in barsand they were tight.
It was a small area, so even you couldn'twave your hands around or in pubs.

(47:12):
I think you're just. You hurt.
You read that on the internet.
Abraham Lincoln told me was onthe internet is true.
And speaking of which,Irish night at the town hall.
Are you going to come?
I am, that's the 24th.
Yeah, it's coming up. Right.
I already have a table, I don't. Oh,you want to see what? Our table.
I would love to sit at your table. Right.All right. Yeah.
The Boyle's. In the. Holstein here.All right.

(47:34):
I was, I was too.
I was on a reality ten years ago.
It wasa long time, but it was really nice.
My mom and dad came.
My brother from Mexico surprised me.
It was really cool.
Yeah, I think it was around 2014or somewhere else.
The brother and Mexico rank of the eight.
He's the youngest middle child.

(47:54):
Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah.You threatened them to come.
You know, Carrie surprised me.
I didn't know anybody was coming.
Yeah.
And, everybody showed up at the bar, and,
and we walked over to townhall from there.
Yeah. Nice.
All right. Yeah.
Join us.
We'll have a, That's awesome for.
You. That's this weekend, right?
It's the 25th.
Two weeks. So fall for a cure.
Are the honorees this time okay? Reynolds.

(48:17):
Yeah. Jameson and a couple other people.
But, yeah, I was an honorary once, too,so that was awesome.
A couple years ago.
Honored and proud of my Irish heritage.
You still got your shillelagh?You still got.
No, I didn't give me a shillelagh.
I got a, Yeah, yeah, okay.
I think I think you did.
I heard that back in the day.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'mgoing to call I'm going to talk to John.

(48:38):
So I'm, I'm actually during Covid, I,I became a member of the European Union.
I got my Irish passport.
See. Yeah.
And that's been on my things to do listforever.
Yeah.
My grandfather was born in Waterford,Ireland.
I have his death certificate.
Birth certificate?
Everything. Yeah, I just been.
You just got to do all those things.I just kind of getting it off.
In. Years now.
To what extent I'll use it.I mean, we travel a fair bit.

(49:00):
So, you know, if, God forbid, I,you know, got hurt,
I think that would be the onegood thing is, like,
you know, I could get the health care
when I'm over there, but, but it's justit makes me feel proud to have it both.
Like, my mom and dad were both born there.
So nice. Yeah. I'm first generation.Yeah, that's.
The main reason I wanted it.
Just for the pride and. Yeah,yeah, yeah. No.
It's cool.
Very cool. Where was your family from?

(49:20):
So my dad's from County Donegal,which is in the northwest.
And a couple counties below that isLeitrim, which is where my mom's from.
But how many timeshave you been to the motherland?
Probably ten to both of our daughters.
I, went to school there, for a semester.
Sharon went to, University of Dublinin, in Dublin.

(49:41):
And then, Michaelawent to University of Galway
and, yeah, it was,you know, great study abroad stuff.
And then, Did they just.
One semester once? One semester? Yeah.
And I still have a number of cousinsthat live there.
In fact, my cousin still lives in
the and worksthe farm where my dad was born and raised.
My my mom was one of 13and my dad's one of 11.

(50:04):
I have 77 first cousins.
Yeah.
Yeah, my dad's one of eight.
And, my sister had a pen pal,which was a cousin when she was little.
I don't knowif they still continue to write, but
yeah, I went there once with my wifebefore we married.
Fluent to Dublin.
Did the horseshoe flew out of Shannon?
Yeah, yeah. Best time of my life.
I can't wait to goback. It's awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

(50:25):
So. Yeah.
All right. Cool. 25th.
All right. Any other upcoming events?
You're so.
You're Bushnell. It'skind of like your home base.
Well, we've got winter carnival comingup. Yeah, we've got that.
And so Winter Carnival is onewe came up with last year.
Sort of a version of like.
It just drives me crazythat I drive around town
and there's nobody ever outside playinglike I love.
I grew up in upstate New York and I lovedplaying football in the winter,

(50:46):
you know what I mean?
Just like, you know, tacklewith my brothers or whatever,
just going sleddingand we would play soccer.
We'd play anything, you know, I'd scrapethe driveway and shoot hoops and,
so really what we were trying to dois to help kids understand, like,
you're not going to die like you playingoutside is actually good for you, right?
Yeah. Build your immune system,get your heart rate going.
So just for an hour,we just essentially do what we do an hour

(51:08):
before an after school program.We do on the.
And it was awesome. Last year.
So Mayor Brownindicated was in the program.
He lived right across the street.
We just basically we play
team handball, we play touch football,we play a version of baseball.
And last year it was it was golden becauseit snowed on the first day we did it.
And a lot of times it's like,oh, snow, we got to cancel.

(51:30):
We're like, no, we're not cancel it.
Like,you know, I was safe enough for people.
You know, it's a choice.
We tell them, like basically, you know,
we're not anything to, like,tell you not to or to tell you to.
We're going to be there.
If you can get there safely,then come on over.
And a lot of kids walked.
So, yeah, it's outdoor programwe call Winter Carnival
because we want it to sound fun,but we also want people to know

(51:50):
it's going to be outside.
We got we got some funding from Dick'sSporting Goods.
So if kids don't have gloves or hats,they just send us a discreet
email, tell us what size, and we show upwith gloves and hats for kids.
So cool. Yeah.
So we, I mean, it's our it's our, like,park home base because
we've, we have just found it a good spotfor us to do very general things we do.

(52:13):
Like we have a partnershipwith USA fencing.
We, we have a way to teach fencing at 2%of the cost of traditional fencing.
We do that there.
Once a week, in the, in the winter.
And I'm sorry, in the fall, in the spring.
Yeah. So we're in, it's just.
And then usually the foundation
will come and open the carouselon the last night of our event,

(52:34):
and let kids have free carousel rides,which is cool, too.
Can't beat it. Yeah. Wintercarnival. Yeah.
So cool. Yeah.
Well, a couple other upcoming events.
Do you have any other upcoming events?
We have so much going on right nowthat, you know, when you say event.
We, we had,
August 29th, you know what day that is?

(52:55):
It's the 241st day of the calendar year.
So okay,
so we got it declared National SportsSampling Day by the National Day calendar.
So we are looking to make thatan annual event as a as our
you know how people got giving Tuesdayand you've got you know blue Jean mile.
But we want to make our that daybe our annual giving day.
And because itit is named in our, in our honor.

(53:17):
So we're going to be thinking about
what are some thingswe can do leading up to that.
We're really excitedabout this partnership
with fight for children,which is a DC based organization
that sort of overseesall, youth sports in Washington, DC.
We just partnered with Boston Afterschooland Beyond, which is a similar cohort
of outside of school time programingthat partners with Boston Public Schools.

(53:40):
We met today with Achievement Firstin Hartford.
Hoffman Auto Grouphas committed a large amount of fund
to help us startnew programing in East Hartford.
And in Hartford.
And one of them is a music and movementprogram.
So, we are we're we're looking to,
combine our top shelf sports

(54:01):
with, music samplingprogram at Achievement First in Hartford.
So, yeah, when I you ask what we gotgoing on it, it really is a lot.
Yeah.
No, it's, it's great you got.
The three on three in Hartford.East Hartford.
No, that actually was a was a, one of theother recipients of the catalyst grants.
Low is a different nonprofitthat they got a $5,000 grant.

(54:23):
There were $69,000 available.
We got a large chunk of that.
And then they, you know, it'sbased on what we asked for it, you know?
So, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah. So big.
Irish night, January 25th.
Wolfpack game. What?
Friends of Feeney, February 28th.
If you're available, come join us.
I think we are available.
And Kerry and I have been talking aboutwanting to get to a Wolfpack game.

(54:45):
Oh, we do have a grantthat's out there right now
through Liberty Bankthat we're pretty confident about.
You know, you just never know.
You know how many other peoplehave asked for grants?
So one of the things we're looking to do,
we're going to use that moneyto support Grace Academy in Hartford,
to bring our modeland support their athletics.

(55:06):
But we want to do a sports sampling dayin May with Hartford Athletics.
So Hartford Athletichas been a really good partner of ours,
and I'm only thinking of it nowbecause of the Wolfpack.
You just brought them up. Yeah.
And that it would be on site,but we would welcome
all kids from all of our programs.
But it would be kind of be hosted byHartford Athletic and by, Grace Academy.

(55:26):
So it'll be it'll be grant pending,but that'll be sometime in May.
Very cool.
Then we have Parkville Market.
We're going to have a presence there.
We are the
Be a Good Friend concert series sponsorsevery Saturday there's a band in there.
We collaborated with the GreaterHartford Arts and got a grant.
And then Travis Moody Blues,my good friend,

(55:47):
is going to be playing,so please join us February 22nd.
Okay.
And then our golf event September 13th.
Yes, fourth annual Friendsof Fini golf tournament that dunks.
Do you golf?
I, I have been known to try to swinga club, but, I'm not sure I did this year.
But I don't slow anybody down.

(56:07):
But I won't break any records. Yeah.
You're perfect.
You're perfect personwe need at our tournaments.
All right. Great.
You'll keep.
Keep me in the loop on those dates, and,and again, maybe there's a
there's an opportunityfor a joint fundraiser at some point
where we would love to collect fundsfor each other's works together. So.
Well, I think you're doing great things.
I consider you a good friend.

(56:28):
You know, two for one.
I've been a teacher for 21 years.
What minute are we at?
Stephania?
You're at 97.
We're at 97.
Whoa. 57. 57.
Like. Well, we've been talking for an hourand a half hour.
We're at an hour,so it's perfect time to drop an exclusive.

(56:52):
Two for one.
I'm taking my talents to South Beach.
Yeah.
The LeBron James.
No, I don't know.
What did you want to share?
Well, yeah. Well, I mean, I'mso excited about this.
Like, I feel like we,you know, we stepped in it a little bit.
I know howhow popular you are as a teacher in town.
How many people know you in townfor the good work you do at French Feeney?

(57:14):
But also,
that you've done summer program
and quality summer programingat a great camp for many years.
And so,
you and I had met almost a decade ago totalk about two for one for the first time.
And at that point, I didn'treally have anything for you. Right.
Because we were still relatively small,and it was based on revenue

(57:35):
we were bringing in.
And so it just never happened.
Now we're at a in a position where we knowevery summer we have so much work
and we are always looking for qualityeducators, quality teacher coaches.
And so, we're here to announce that,
Eric's going to be working at leastfour weeks for two for one this summer.

(57:56):
We're not quite
ready to declare what his role will be.
Because last year, I would have had
you be a utility playerat some of our grant funded programs.
There was a lot of young teachercoaches, paraprofessionals, behavior
techs who could use mentorship,who could use some guidance.
We probably would have had you supportin some of those programs. But,

(58:18):
we're committed to having youas many weeks as you are available.
We have at least eight weeks of programingthat are going to happen this summer.
It'll be a combination of parent pay campshere in West Hartford.
We have two weeks at Kingswood.
Actually, we have two weeksat the University of Saint Joseph's.
We're really excited about that.
In August, first time ever.
We have two weeks in Farmingtonat Farmington High School.

(58:39):
We have two weeks up in Suffield,
but last year we employedalmost 250 people across our network.
We we got a giant grant from the State
Department of Educationto serve 750 kids in the correct system.
We were in three schools there.
We've always beenin the New Britain schools
for the past decadedoing summer programing.
If this summer's like any other summer,we're going to need it.

(59:00):
You know, ten more of youif you can replicate.
So, but we're just we're thrilledto have you on board
and make the announcementof where you'll be
and what you'll be doingwhen the time comes.
I'm honored. I'm excited. I'm motivated.
So I'm. Really.
And your daughtersare welcome to work with us as well.
Nice. Yeah.
Bring the trouble along. Yeah.
No, they're excited too. Great.
So this is great. Yeah.

(59:21):
No, I remember our meeting. Jeremy. Yes.
And you were like.
I was ready to sit and talkand have coffee.
You're like, I prefer walking meetings.
And I was like, I like this guy.
And we walked all the way down ParkRoad, took the left down
what runs parallel to Park Roadand went all the.
Way around Boulevard?
Yeah, Boulevard. Yeah.
We almost did a full mile. Yeah.

(59:43):
Talking and chatting and catching up.
First time I ever met you. And I was like,that stood out.
So if I ever meet with anyone, I'mdoing walking meeting.
It's so funny cuzmy kids would make fun of me there.
You're like Mr.
Physical Literacy doing walking meetingsall the time.
That's stood out forever.
Yeah.
And, so I remember that day.
And, so ten years later, here we are.
Yeah. I'm excited to join the team.That's great.

(01:00:05):
Really looking forward to it.
Thank you.Thank you very much. Yeah. Of course.
Well. Welcome aboard.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah,we got the two for one.
Got the.
Yes. We got all sorts of,you know, swag for you.
The United Colors of two for one. Yeah.
And I will say that I am a competitive guy
and I see way more be a good friend magnetthan I see two for one Magnus's day.

(01:00:26):
But I have each on my car and I wouldI would expect
nothingless of the of the Feeney vehicles.
Two honorary swag. Yes.
All right. Yeah.
The trade.
The trade stand. There we go.
Be a good friend. Thank you.
And, Yeah.
So let'slet's get let's get be a good friend.
Friend to Feeney.
And two for one.
Magnets on thousands more carsthis year. Let's do it.

(01:00:48):
Yeah. No, your website has quite the swag.
You know,you have pillows, bottles, scarves.
Travis. Matthew polos.
Come on, that's good stuff.
Carhartt hats.
Yeah, yeah, it's hoodie.
To be honest, no one uses that store.
We got to you know and it's it'sone of those sort of squat locker
sort of thingswhere you go on and they do the logo.
So yeah. Yeah. So yeah not yeah.

(01:01:10):
We don't use it as a fundraiser.Yeah. No it's good stuff.
But we've, we've waited we want to try tobecause people are like they see it now
and it's a noticeable brand.
Can we travel or people like whoaa cool shirt
or just they like the tagline, you know?
And so yeah, thanks. Can't beat it.
So being
a teacher 21 years,my favorite teacher of all time was Mrs.

(01:01:31):
Joel, my fifth grade teacher.
You know, beside my mom,most important person in my life,
she kind of motivated mein the right time.
My parents were going through a divorce.
Do you have a favorite teacher?
I do, in fact, I've reconnected with him.
You know,it used to always be one of those things
where I would have a kidthat would come back,
or they'd find me on social mediaand they'd say something like,

(01:01:55):
you might not remember saying this, but
you said something to me in the hallwayor in your office.
And that changed my life.
And I thought I would never know thatunless the kid had the gumption, you know?
And then I started to think,like how powerful we are as educators.
So I reached back outto, I call him, doctor Kisic.

(01:02:15):
Coach Kisic. He's not a doctor.
And he wasn't even my coach, but hehe was a coach.
He was mymy English teacher and theology teacher.
And what was kind of cool was that
I didn't know if I was in English classor if I was in theology class.
So he just he was a Vietnam vet and
he he just had a way.

(01:02:37):
He was sort of like, the guy from,
got Robin Williams and, Oh, yeah.
Stand on the desk. Yeah.
Why am I your captain? My captain?
How am I forgetting the name of this DeadPoets Society?
Thank you.
Which I literally used to watch every yearto start my teaching career.
So he just had that sort of way of.

(01:02:58):
There were no notes, and he.
He would talk about love.
He would talk about,you know, it was all boys school, right?
And talk about love in a waythat like, was philosophical.
And so I sent reconnected with him andwe get together on a fairly regular basis.
He lives up in, Saratoga, New York,which is the town my brother lives in.

(01:03:20):
And, he's he kept all of our yearbooks.
He kept news clippings of me and,and also just randomly
send me a note once in a while,just saying how proud he is of me.
And two for one and what we do,and he just he's just.
That guy's a motivator.
And his John and Kerry'sdad was a lot like that.
Like, there's so many people that showedfor Kerry's dad's funeral.

(01:03:43):
So he carries.
Dad was not my teacher,but he was a teacher.
And he had a huge impact on my life, too.Yeah.
So Coach Kissack and, Coach Schlueter.
Nice. Yeah. That's amazing.
And our newest question,
based on our podcast, last episodewith Stephania one, two, three.
Who's your favorite superheroor what's your favorite superpower? Ooh.

(01:04:06):
I got to go with Superman and flying.Yeah.
I mean, I think if, you know,I was when I was little, like,
if the idea of being able to flywould be like, oh, that's pretty cool.
Yeah, yeah.
So have we touched on?
Is there anything that I've missedthat you want to share or talk about?
Any questions for me. Yeah.Anything that I missed.
Well, you had you had asked about,an experience with a friend and,

(01:04:30):
when we were,we were talking about doing this,
and so I want toI did want to share with you
my favorite moment, you know,just because I had thought about it a lot.
And, like, I have an incredibly goodrelationship with my wife, like.
And so we work together.We found at this together.
We love to travel together.
Our our girls.
I think it's
literally a challenge for thembecause we have such a high crossbar

(01:04:53):
with relationshipsthat they sometimes will say, like,
okay, how are we going to find someone whogets along as well as the two of you do?
And that's not to saythat we haven't had our, you know, stuff.
But I will say when we,
I had a momentwhen we were in Nairobi, Kenya,
and we had done a training the daybefore we were on this
literally just Dust Bowldirt soccer field with 115

(01:05:17):
kids from Nairobi, all wearingtwo for one shirt in different stations.
And we made eye contact
and we had this look to each other, like,how did we get here?
You know what I mean?
And so to be with my best friendin a setting like that,
knowing we were impactingthe globe was really powerful.

(01:05:37):
And so when you asked that question,when you reached out to me,
I wanted to share that story.
That's amazing. Yeah.
Give me my feels.
Man, that was good. That was pretty good.
No. Yeah.
It's good to have a partner,you know, life partner.
And that's that's an amazing relationship.
So 31 years. Congratulations.

(01:05:58):
Yeah, yeah, I'm in my 19th year.
All right,keep them coming. Yep, I love it.
And you have three girls.So you're a girl, dad.
I am a girl, dad. In fact,I have a girl dad hat.
Yeah, and two of them are teachingand coaching, in Austin, Texas.
And, the oldest one who tried outfor the local travel soccer
team, my Irish Catholic daughter worksfor the National Council of Jewish Women.

(01:06:20):
She does faithbased organizing around social justice
issues for,you know, a global, organization.
And, and, you know, it's obviouslywith everything going on in the globe,
it's, it's challenging work, but,she she does good work.
Yeah. It's amazing.
Yeah. Proud dad too.Good job. Thanks. Thanks.
Thanks, man.

(01:06:41):
Yeah.
So, any closing remarks, recommendations?
Are you listening to any podcast, TVshows, books?
Well, we're hopingactually to maybe start our own podcast.
I think we're going to call itthe Pudding Play Back into sports podcast.
It's a mouthful and probablytoo long for SEO, but we'll figure it out.
So I guess maybe that would be a questionI have for you is like,
why did you start doing a podcast and

(01:07:03):
what's the value add been for youand and doing great.
Yeah.
I want to thank Dave from Direct LineMedia.
None of this would have been possible.
He invited me into his studioto do a behind the brand.
I talked about friends with Feeneyand being a teacher and inspired me to
to do so.
And then on the way out,I said, hey, can I ask the pod?

(01:07:24):
Can I ask the questions?
And, you know, he took it upon himselfand he opened it up and volunteered
all his time. He's an amazing person.
Thank you Dave,I know he's going to listen to this
in fast motion,but he's going to listen to this.
So thank you.
Direct Line Media is amazing.
They're just a great, great group.
Stephanie is all right to check outour last podcast episode. 123.

(01:07:48):
I'm kidding. It was great.
No, it helps me.
Like you said, our phones are away.
We're talking one on one.
Yeah, bringing back that social peace.
You're doing great things.I'm learning something new.
I love learning something new.
I'm an audio learner. Yeah.
You know, I prefer to listen than read or,you know, so just.
I'm talking with over 120 people.

(01:08:09):
The mayor, the police chief, Kenny Main,you know,
some IT people in sports,the secretary of education.
You can't beat it.
Medal of Honor recipient, you name it.
It was just like such diversegroups, all doing great things.
And the little. Old me, that's.
For Steve Boyle.
That's very cool. No, but I I'm sure.

(01:08:31):
I think your podcast would be great, too,because you have an angle
that, you know, you could
your first guest could be Steve Nashbecause he plays soccer and basketball.
Yeah.
Oh, or, you know this Travis Hunter guy?
Well, he's gone both ways in one sport,but I'm just seen.
There's so many people.
Yeah, I knew Ginobili did both sports.
Deion Sanders you know there's so many Mr.
Jackson all these people out there. Yeah.

(01:08:54):
And you have that going for you.
So yeah. Exactly.
And I think also there'sthe anti specialization piece.
But then there's also the equity piece.The access piece.
You know like educators like you know,
you you talk to the Secretary of EducationI heard him speak not long after that.
And his whole thing was around equity.
Right. And getting kids the opportunity.
Like it's one thing to be ableto become a college football

(01:09:16):
player, professional athlete,but it's another thing
to know how to catch or throwor know the rules.
To be able to watch those games.
You can engage in society.
So yeah, I think our angles would be,you know, would be we'd want to walk
both of the worlds we walk
in, obviously getting big names on it,like Eric Feeney and stuff like that.
You'll be your first guest.Yeah, right. Yeah.
I caught a two point conversionfreshman year.

(01:09:36):
My friend. The like through to me.
We still joke aboutit was the highlight of my career. Yeah.
And then you did a baseball swing,so. Right. Yeah. There you go.
I won tallest runner at Toad's Placefor the Shamrock and Run.
Yeah, I did run a marathononce for four hours and 45 minutes.
God bless you.
Yeah, I only ran a fasterbecause I wanted to get it over with.
What did you. Do?
I was just about to be under three hourswhen the whole left side of my body

(01:10:00):
fell asleep.
I was in 50th place at the HartfordMarathon when if the 24.5 mile mark
the left side I crossed,I crossed with my hand,
my shoes in my handsat three minutes and 21 seconds.
Yeah.
So I never ran another one. Yeah.
Oh boy. I was on.
I only needed to break 310 and I was justhaving a great run and it was hot.

(01:10:21):
And I think, you know, I had an MRI donebecause they didn't know what happened.
They thought I might have stroke.
And, they just said it was probablya dehydration response
or some compression on the backor something like that.
So I was I was literally weepingwhen I, when I did it.
Yeah, I, I, I was probably a better runnerthan I was a basketball player, but,
and I miss it, man.

(01:10:41):
I really miss it. Yeah. Yeah, man, I did.
I, I got in my fields when I cross too,because I felt like you
really accomplished something.Oh my God. Yeah, yeah.
My family was there to meet meand I like, saw them and I just like.
Yeah, I did it. Yeah.
Like 27 miles, 26 pointsomething is a long.
Shot a big deal.
And you know why you might all watchpeople do marathons.
No. Like the majority of the peoplein this world will never even consider

(01:11:04):
doing one. It's a big deal.Yeah. It's good I did it. Yeah.
Good for you.And I'm still trying to play hoop.
So we got to hoop some day.
Yeah, I'm.
I still play in the old manSunday morning game.
And, I have some great year just.
And that I missed that during Covidso much.
And again I think it's one of the thingsthat motivates me is that I find so much
joy and value in playing sportseven now as an adult,

(01:11:26):
but I wouldn't be doing itif I didn't learn those things as a kid.
And when I think about
how many kids out there, Eric,that don't have the opportunity to play or
their sport experience is so negativebecause it's a job at a young age,
I just worry about, will kids be playingwhen they're older?
Yeah.
And you do get the folksthat maybe took 20 or 30 years off

(01:11:47):
and they discover pickleball or whatever,but that's a long gap.
Like I never really stopped.
And I, you know, you're younger than I ampeers.
You've to haven't stopped either, right?Yeah.
I can't stop and continue,like you said, that
the relationships I'm buildingat the JCC, wonderful network of people.
Main reason we moved near WolcottPark was the park.
Yeah.

(01:12:07):
I go down and get.
And I jump into some of those pickupgames, and that court still just really.
Yeah, it's.I have a real funny quick last story show.
So one time I'm like, I,I was over at Eisenhower.
My, my daughters were playing soccer,and, like,
I don't want to watch another soccer game.
So there's basketball courts right there.
And I saw some kids playing.
So I get upand I go across to the bicycle.
I'm going to gotry to get in a game over there. And

(01:12:30):
and I'm, I'm playing pretty well, like,
you know, like to a point where I'm like,I'm feeling pretty good.
So some other kids show upand they had come in from Hartford
and they were younger. And,
all of a sudden one of the guys
that I had been scoring against causeI got OG

(01:12:51):
and I was like, devastated.
So I go home that night and I'm like,I mean, I was killing this kid and he.
Calls me OG.
So I tell him my girlsthis story and I'm like, you know,
I mean, I know I'm old, but doesyou have to call me the old guy?
They're like, dad,he wasn't calling you the old guy.
You are. OG.
You're the original. Gangster.And I'm like, he.
That was like, the biggest complimenthe could have given you.

(01:13:12):
And I'm like, oh, I feel.
So bad because I was like,so mad at him for calling me OG.
I love it. The OG.
Yeah, yeah. It's original gangster.
It's like ultimate compliment.
Oh I do for I didn't know so yeah.
Now you know. Yeah.
Well I had such a blast talking with you.
I'm so excited.
Our our future collaborations.
I'm looking forward to this summer.

(01:13:33):
I learned so much about youin the program.
Two for one is doing great thingsin five countries.
I mean, keep it up.
Thanks, mate.
Thanks. I'm proud to know you,and I'm really looking forward to it.
We usually end with be a good friend,but we're going to say two things today.
We're going to say life'stoo short for one sport.
Just one sport. Yeah. Oh, excuse me,I jacked that up.
That's your life's too shortfor just one sport.

(01:13:54):
Just one sport. Gotcha.
And then we'll say be a good friend.All right.
On three.
One. Two, three.
Life's too short for just one sport.
Be a good friend. Love it.

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Episode #124: Feeney Talks with Steve Boyle

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